Effects of Covid on Darlington Bank Top Station "Remains to be seen"

TEES Valley Mayor Ben Houchen has indicated that Covid-19 will not have a large affect on the Darlington Bank Top Station development and "people want to get back out and back into office." But, "it's anybody's guess" says Heather Scott.

According to government statistics provided by The Department of Transport which presents figures as a percentage of an equivalent day or week in the previous year, use of National Rail during the first national lockdown was recorded at 10 per cent at the highest point of usage.

Mr Houchen, said: "It remains to be seen what the long term consequences of Covid will be on people's travel behaviour."

The same set of data shows that before lockdown, the lowest recorded use of public transport was 16 per-cent at the height of the pandemic, recorded a day before the first national lockdown was imposed.

After the first lockdown, the data shows that public transport has steadily increased with the highest usage being recorded at 32 per-cent in the second national lockdown and 53 per cent at the end of last month.

Mr Houchen said: "My personal view is that people, while enjoying working from home, do want to get back out, back into the office, back into the workplace.

“I suspect it won’t go back completely to the way that it was before, I think most people will be working in the office but there’ll be some more flexible working because the last year has shown that it can be done.

“I think public transport will continue to grow, and I suppose what you’re getting into here is a technical argument about, are future growth rates going to be the same rate as they would have been without Covid than before.

“I still think we will see an increased use of public transport in particular the railways, but will it be as much projection over the next ten years as it would have been without Covid because of the change of behaviours.

Heather Scott, leader of Darlington Borough Council, said: “I think after Covid, it is anybody’s guess. I substitute for Ben on Rail North and East Coast Mainline and so forth so yes there are concerns that people may not come back onto trains and more people are working from home.

“But there is a positivity that maybe there won’t be people who are just travelling for work, obviously other people may use it as well.

“What we’re trying to do as well is to try to encourage people to not use their cars and maybe to use rail and buses, so I think rail can probably benefit from that as well.

“I but I think we will just have to wait and see, I think passenger use has gone up now restrictions are being eased and I think one of the problems over the recent bank holiday weekend was that there was not sufficient trains and people just couldn’t get on.

Peter Gibson, MP for Darlington said: "We have seen over the last 30 years, train passenger usage rise exponentially and there has been a rising need for more capacity on our train lines at all times over those last few years.

“The last year is not the year to compare with any other really in terms of public demand. I’ve used the train to travel to and from London where there has been virtually nobody on the train.

A spokesperson for Northern Rail said: “It has been a difficult year across the rail industry as a whole and the impact of the coronavirus pandemic will undoubtedly be felt for some time to come.

“However, those customers returning to the railway to use services will certainly notice some significant enhancements.

“Our customers are at the heart of everything we do, and we’ve used the year to deliver a much-improved network for them to return to.

“In the past 12 months alone Northern has introduced its fleet of new trains, completed the refurbishment of its older trains and delivered millions of pounds worth of improvements at stations, including the installation of more than 600 ticket machines and improved accessibility features.”

The most recent data according to Government statistics, recorded on June 7 shows national rail usage was 51 per-cent.