Essex Ramblers win rail crossings battle
Readers with long memories will recall that back in 2016 Network Rail (NR) decided to embark on a programme of level crossing closures in Essex, all of which were only for walkers or farmers. (Further closures were proposed in Cambridgeshire and Suffolk.) Fifty seven were proposed and NR sought to steamroller them through by parcelling them all together under the Transport and Works Act, which does not have the consultation requirements usually associated with Rights of Way. The fear was that this was the thin edge of the wedge, a kind of test case; if NR won in East Anglia, the closures could be extended to the rest of the country.
Some of the 57 crossings had been closed for many years or were only used by farmers, and it was decided not to object to them. But others were in use and NR’s proposals would have involved often lengthy diversions, or onto busy roads or inappropriate surfaces.
Essex Ramblers decided to object to 29 of the proposals, and after it was made clear that NR was not willing to consider changes, a Public Inquiry was set up by the Department of Transport to hear the objections of organisations and members of the public. Similar inquiries were held in Cambridgeshire and Suffolk, and the reports for those counties were published two years ago, with mostly positive outcomes for the Ramblers.
With the support of Central Office, Essex Ramblers had legal representation, but local members, who worked hard to detail our reasons, put the case for keeping each crossing under cross-examination from NR’s barrister. The Inquiry ran from September 2018, with many gaps, until February 2019, and on 17 March this year the inspector’s report was published. Three years is a long time; how long it sat on the desk of the Secretary of State for Transport is unknown.
The report, which runs for 559 pages, is extensive and detailed, with the bulk of it giving detailed consideration to every proposed closure. NR’s case was to improve the safety of level crossing users, railway staff and passengers. NR also said they wanted to reduce delays to trains, pedestrians and other highway users and cut ongoing operating and maintenance costs, but as the inquiry progressed it seemed that cost savings rather than safety were their main concern.
The Ramblers objected that there was a lack of justification to close the crossings and divert the relevant public rights of way and that the alternative routes being provided were not sufficient, in terms of their suitability and convenience for the existing users of the rights of way that currently traverse the level crossings. In short, we considered that these alternative routes would be used by fewer people, or would not be used at all, resulting in fragmentation of, and loss to, the rights of way network. This would, in turn, discourage people from walking – both for leisure and for non-leisure trips (depending on the specifics of the crossing or alternative route’s location). Moreover, some of the proposed diversions would put walkers onto busy roads which presented greater hazards than the crossings in question. Essex County Council made a similar point, arguing that doing so would merely mean transferring the responsibility for risk from NR to ECC.
The inspector decided to recommend 36 crossings for closure. Of the 21 excluded, 18 were the subject of an objection by Essex Ramblers, a success rate of over sixty per cent.
The Inspector noted the Ramblers’ criticism of NR’s approach to safety, particularly our criticism of NR’s “failure to compare and consider the safety risks associated with a level crossing with the safety risks associated with the proposed diversion for that level crossing (in particular, where that diversion would require users to walk alongside a road or its verge).” He noted what we said about
their baffling failure to consider whether the proposals were safer from a user perspective. Hence his decision to retain, not extinguish, 21 of the crossings proposed for closure.
NR clearly spent a lot of public money on the inquiry – usually there were a dozen representatives at the hearings, and barristers are not cheap. And it will have paid expensive consultants to make recommendations about the closures. In contrast, the Ramblers had one barrister and relied for evidence on local representatives; Gordon Bird and Alan Goffee carried a great deal of the burden and deserve full credit. Will Network Rail learn from its experience in East Anglia and draw back from any ideas it might have about extending crossings’ closures more widely? Time will tell
If you want to read the inquiry report or find the results for your area, go to
Mike Cannell, Essex Area Media Officer