How would/will Kim McGuinness go around opening the Leamside Line?

[Egg Centric]

Not sure if this is the right part of the forum as this is part politics, part speculative, and part infrastructure.

But on Thursday there is a vote up here for the North East mayor. Kim is one of the two credible - by which I mean can plausibly win - candidates and one of her pledges is to reopen the Leamside line.

What's involved in that from both a political perspective (e.g. does the mayor have any power to direct this, either by telling NR to do it or perhaps allocating money there) and more importantly from perspective of this forum a technical perspective? There are some old threads lying around but they don't say very much as far as I can see.

Please keep any non Leamside Line politics out of this thread

Addendum: I just googled and the only other credible candidate (using the same definition of credible) Jamie Driscoll also backs it. But does the support of either actually mean anything?

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

The Metro Mayors have no direct powers or funding to open/reopen lines.
But the present government has done deals with some Metro Mayors for investment on their patch, notably in Liverpool and West Midlands.
They are based on negotiations with the Treasury and cover funding over multiple years.
George Osborne was very keen to get such agreements in place, subsequent Chancellors less so, but they are still a thing.
One thing currently is that we are due a Comprehensive Spending Review which will set the national budget for such schemes.
They are usually packages of investment covering local aspirations with a decent business case.

One issue in the north east may be the fact that the Ashington line is already being reopened, which soaks up current reinstatement funds in the region.
Another is that Network Rail is probably not keen to reopen the line for current levels of traffic.
But at least it gets the enhancement on the agenda, and the government will have to listen to the Mayor's priorities.
For Mayors, if Liverpool City Region is anything to go by, it is sometime difficult for them to choose between several competing local schemes.

 

[takno]

There are some reasonably well-developed plans to open part of it for use as a Metro line, and some more speculative plans to open all of it for diversionary/freight purposes.

Mayors have some discretionary budget, and are generally more able to bid for various government funding like Network North than individual councils. I'd be surprised if the first five year term got anything further than a couple more planning stages, particularly since money is pretty tight everywhere at the moment, but if it makes any progress it will likely be on the Metro side.

 

[YorksLad12]

Combined Authorities have the City Region Sustainable Transport Settlement. It's a five-year funding plan that covers everything from light rail to potholes. Money is released annually.

It's not a huge amount of money, comparatively speaking; Tracy Brabin can't use it to build Mass Transit, Oliver Coppard can't give the money to Rotherham to build a new rail station north of Masborough. But they can use the money to develop plans for Mass Transit/Rotherham Mainline, alongside other local transport interventions such as cycle routes or road junction reconfigurations.

Some schemes are retained by DfT, possibly for funding elsewhere; Rotherham Mainline being one. Something like a line reopening would be so expensive that it would have to be centrally funded, with local funding for "bells and whistles"; a connecting bus service, say.

By way of example, West Yorkshire schemes are here, and South Yorkshire's schemes are here. All dates speculative, of course