An announcement from the Department for Transport regarding the reinstatement of the former railway line between Tavistock and Bere Alston has been described as “imminent” by the county councillor for transport.

Speaking of the business case submitted to the Department for Transport in November last year to restore the track under the Restoring Your Railway Fund when reflecting on the success of the Dartmoor Line’s reopening, Cllr Andrea Davis said the announcement could be expected any day now.

The £500m Fund was first announced in January 2020 and is now supporting over 45 schemes with the potential to level up areas and reconnect communities, with the Dartmoor Line (between Okehampton and Crediton, onto Exeter) having been the first to be completed (nationally). Following this, West Devon Borough Council secured over £13.4m to build a second Okehampton station (the West Devon Transport Hub) in January, with rail pressure groups such as OkeRail and TavyRail (formerly the Peninsula Rail Group) arguing that these two major developments, with higher than predicted passenger numbers on the Dartmoor Line in its first year, will serve as an impetus to restore the line between Tavistock and Bere Alston, connecting onto Plymouth where the track is already in place on the Tamar Valley Line.

At the most recent Bere Ferrers Parish Council meeting, stand in chair Cllr Brian Lamb described the council as being “quietly confident” for a positive outcome which would confirm the line’s return between the two destinations in light of many other business cases submitted in other areas of the country having been successful in securing substantial development funding to restore their respective former lines and stations.

When asked for a date on which the result would be announced however, the Department for Transport told the Times it would be made “in due course.” When asked to specify, the department did not respond, but confirmed: “an announcement on successful funding bids is expected this summer.”

The business case submitted by the county council proposed delivering a new single platform station at Tavistock, constructed south of Callington Road, which would serve approximately 21,000 local residents, with an annual forecast of 394,000 passengers.

The five mile stretch of track (on the former northern route mainline) has remained largely untouched, with no major encroachments over the trackbed between the two locations since it was decommissioned in 1968 as a direct casualty of the Beeching cuts — an axing that TavyRail chair Richard Searight has described as “catastrophic” and “a complete failure of mind, planning and foresight.”

Damien Jones, the county council’s head of transport coordination, has previously confirmed that Network Rail began conducting “preparatory” signalling work at Bere Alston station in late 2021.