Rail minister Wendy Morton has announced a further £15M in funding to develop nine railway schemes across England to reopen disused railway lines, services and stations.

The Restoring Your Railway Fund was announced in January 2020 as part of the levelling up agenda when the government pledged £500M to deliver on its manifesto commitment and start reopening lines and stations.

The funding will continue the development of some schemes identified through the Ideas Fund, which is providing early-stage development funding to 38 schemes in total. The fund is kickstarting and boosting development on projects and has already seen success with the reopening of the Dartmoor Line.

The nine schemes now set to receive funding are:

• Aldridge station and line upgrade in Walsall
• The Barrow Hill Line between Sheffield and Chesterfield
• The Ivanhoe Line between Leicester and Burton on Trent
• Meir Station between Stoke-on-Trent and North Staffordshire
• Haxby Station on the York to Scarborough Line
• Reinstating the Fleetwood Railway Line
• Ferryhill Station in County Durham
• The Mid Cornwall Metro, connecting Newquay, Truro and Falmouth
• Devizes Station between Pewsey and Westbury in Wiltshire

Rail Minister Wendy Morton said the funding "will reconnect communities long cut off from the railway".

She added: "The last time you could catch a train from Haxby Station was 1930, George V was on the throne and The Times had just published their first-ever crossword. But now, thanks to this funding, communities across England could be reconnected to our railways once more.

"This fund is a great example of how we are committed to helping communities across the country level up and reconnect people and businesses to new opportunities."

By funding development to reopen these lines and stations, the government is levelling up local communities, providing transformative opportunities for people to travel to work, get to school and see their family and friends.

In October, plans to reopen 13 abandoned railways and disused stations were accepted for development under the third round of the fund, taking the total to 38. 

The 13 successful bids were whittled down from 85 submissions during this third and final round of bidding. Of the successful bids, two are for the reopening of disused stations while the other 11 relate to reinstating passengers services on abandoned routes (see full breakdown of bids below).
In the last funding round, backers of 15 proposals were awarded cash to develop their business cases. Ten schemes won backing in the first round.