CAMPAIGNERS are celebrating after taking another step on the long road towards bringing trains back to Middlewich – but a councillor says work has stood still.

The Mid Cheshire Rail Link Campaign has announced that consultancy firm WSP will work on a study looking into the feasibility of bringing passenger trains back on the Northwich to Sandbach line.

Both parties were at a stakeholder group meeting on Thursday, along with Fiona Bruce, MP for Middlewich, and representatives from Cheshire East and Cheshire West and Chester councils.

In a Facebook post following the meeting, the Mid Cheshire Rail Link Campaign said: “Our campaign is moving rapidly.

“The WSP team are extremely professional and seemed to have a firm grasp of the aims of the project. In particular, they will be looking at a service being operated well before the construction of the new HS2 Crewe hub station.

“They intend to produce a report within three months setting out a long list of options. When this current work is completed, a report will go to the secretary of state for transport with recommendations..

“It is hoped that this will lead on to the consultants preparing a full business case, starting early in the new year.”

The campaign for new rail services in Middlewich appears to have taken several leaps forward this year.

Chris Grayling, transport strategy, announced in July that it was one of two trainlines that his department wanted to reopen to passenger trains – while the link has featured prominently in key planning strategies from CEC, CWAC and the Cheshire and Warrington Local Enterprise Partnership.

But at a meeting on Thursday where CWAC’s transport strategy for Northwich – which includes plans to reopen the line – was discussed, Cllr Lynn Gibbon raised concerns about the news.

The Conservative member for Marbury said: “We keep saying that we are going to do studies – this is very frustrating for me.

“In 2008 those studies were done and proved that line needed upgrading, that Northwich station needed a longer line, and Middlewich station wanted reopening.

“Large amounts of money went into it, and 10 years later we are doing another study.

“What worries me is the amount of money that is spent over the years to do the same thing over again, with no decisions or actions taken to actually deliver what is required.”

Kirsty Littler, transport manager at CWAC, called for patience on the project.

She said: “I suppose the issue with that is it is not actually our asset, it is Network Rail’s.

“The Network Rail process for delivering a new station or a new service can be 10 or 20 years.

“The information from 2008 might be a rudimentary ‘yes we can do it’, but you need much more information to back it up with a business case.”