A PROPOSED walking and cycling route between Bishop Auckland and Barnard Castle could become a reality after being included in the North East Combined Authority’s new local transport plan.
The transport plan, drawn up by regional mayor Kim McGuinness, is a £8.7bn wishlist of projects in the region from 2025 through to 2040, and covers road, rail, ports, public transport and, foot and cycle paths.
Targeted for 2040 at a cost of £27million the cycle path project aims to re-open the former railway line between the two towns as an “active mode route” .
The original idea for a “South West Durham Heritage Corridor” was formed in 2006 and aimed to upgrade a stretch between Barnard Castle and West Auckland.
It was dropped in 2010 because of the struggle to get funding and the expected high cost of keeping it maintained. At the time it was estimated to cost £2million.
It was widely supported by the Friends of the Stockton and Darlington Railway who had hoped it would be open in time for the railway’s bicentennial celebration in 2025.
The idea was revived in 2013 by Teesdale Action Partnership’s (TAP) board which invested £8,000 for a feasibility study into upgrading the 12-mile route.
In 2015 TAP granted £10,000 towards a £30,000 scheme to allow a first phase of about half-a-kilometre at East Pethrow and Cockfield Fell to go ahead. This was done in conjunction with Durham County Council and regeneration charity Groundworks.
Craig Morgan, who was TAP co-ordinator in 2015, said the idea of improving some sections of the heritage corridor was to show potential funders what could be done.
However, the upgrade, which attempted to link the end of Scotland Lane, at Burnthouses, to Cockfield Fell, was criticised by local people as well as Cockfield Parish Council, when it ran out of cash and ground to a halt, leaving it unusable because of an unstable bridge along the route.
TAP spent a further £15,000 to improve a section from The Hub, in Barnard Castle, to Dent Gate Lane at Bluestone Grange. By 2017 TAP had upgraded three sections of the route.
