The First Step
With planning now agreed, the Churnet Valley Railway was able to create a definitive plan for reinstatement. Firstly, the land beyond our leased boundary from Network Rail needed to be leased from SMDC. Before this negotiation concluded the railway owned sufficient land to take its tracks a little further north before any formalities for the rest of land could be finalised.
With a contribution of track materials from CVR totalling £21,000 SMDC very kindly followed this up with a grant of £19,000 and with the help of the Permanent Way institute ‘the Leek Stub’ was installed and so the commenced the "Re Connect Leek project"
This enabled the CVR to extend to the Severn Trent Sewage works crossing. The official opening of this took place on the 11th October 2019 with SMDC Lead Councillor Sybil Ralphs cutting the ribbon.
When the world was battling Covid in 2020 and the first round of lockdowns were taking place, CVR directors quietly worked in the background progressing the legal work with our solicitors and SMDC.
On the 2nd June 2020 the directors signed the Lease and Agreement for lease covering the area of land which was missing for the final few 100 metres to return a railway line and station to Leek.
