CENTRAL Devon MP Mel Stride has received an ‘encouraging’ response from the Department for Transport about reopening the passenger railway from Exeter to Okehampton.

The government department is currently in discussions with rail operator Great Western Railway about new rolling stock needed to run services on the line.

Parliamentary under secretary of state Paul Maynard revealed this after Mr Stride asked him for a progress report on comments made by secretary of state for transport Chris Grayling on an election visit to the Westcountry.

Mr Grayling made a promise to get a trial commuter service up and running between Okehampton and Exeter in 2018 when he visited the Westcountry during the general election campaign in the spring.

‘There continues to be very encouraging responses from the Department for Transport regarding the return of a passenger railway between Plymouth and Exeter via Okehampton,’ said Mr Stride.

‘In response to a letter from me earlier this month asking for an update, the rail minister Paul Maynard confirmed that DfT is in discussion with Great Western Railway about options for acquiring the additional rolling stock needed and that some potentially promising options have been identified. This demonstrates that DfT is actively trying to make this happen and is certainly a step in the right direction.’

The Rev Mike Davies, chairman of the OkeRAIL Forum, said: ‘We are greatly encouraged by this, as always we’d like to see things happen a bit more quickly, but at least things are moving forward, and hopefully by the end of 2018 and the start of 2019 we will have a trial daily passenger service from Okehampton to Exeter. When I was appointed as a chairman two years ago, we didn’t have any promise of a service at all, so we are much further forward.’

The development comes after fellow Conservative MP Gary Streeter, who represents South West Devon, asked for ‘the Government’s thinking’ about ‘local services, for example, from Exeter to Okehampton, and from Plymouth towards north Cornwall’ during a debate about Rail Links in South West England in parliament on October 24.

‘It would be good to hear the Minister’s thoughts on that,’ he said during the debate called by Plymouth Labour MP Luke Pollard. ‘It is not directly related to the inter-city movement from Penzance to Paddington, but it is very important for local services. It does the transmodal thing, and it will help move people around in the region.

‘I strongly support the Peninsula Rail Task Force’s request for £600,000 for the study. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Many of us have written to the Minister about that and I hope he can give us some good news—if not today, soon.’

Lobby group Campaign for Better Transport has also been putting pressure on the Department for Transport over Okehampton’s ‘mothballed’ railway line to Exeter.

The group is calling on Mr Grayling to release new funds to support projects to reopen railway lines across the country, and mentions the line between Okehampton to Exeter by name.

‘I know from our discussions that you are keep to make progress with some long discussed projects, starting with those involving passenger services on freight or mothballed lines such as Okehampton and Wisbech,’ said campaign chief executive Stephen Joseph in a letter on October 18. ‘We see funding to develop network expansion projects as a way to make these happen and to develop a pipeline of services.’