For many people consulting a map of Great Britain the county of Cornwall will seem a long way away. But efforts to improve transport infrastructure and services to the most south westerly part of the country promise to bring the peninsula that bit closer.

 

This summer sees the opening of the A30 Temple to Higher Carblake improvement near Bodmin and a preferred route for the upgrade of a further section of the road between Chiverton and Carland Cross near Truro has just been announced.

 

When this second scheme is complete, dual carriageway is set to extend along the A30 from the M5 near Exeter to Camborne.

 

Rail signalling improvements are planned to increase train frequencies between Plymouth and Penzance, the Night Riviera sleeper service from London Paddington is to be overhauled and the county’s airport at Newquay is among the fastest growing in the UK.

 

“Our peripheral location used to be seen as a major challenge but is no longer the big issue it once was,” remarks Cornwall Council’s service director for transport and infrastructure Nigel Blackler. “Our strategic transport links mean you can live here and work elsewhere. People enjoy a very good quality of life in Cornwall and are able to operate on the national stage.”

 

Traffic delays on the 4.5km single carriageway stretch of the A30 over Bodmin Moor had become so acute that five years ago Cornwall Council approached Government with a plan to design and part fund an upgrade. Cornwall put forward a fixed price and agreed to take all the risk.

 

“It was an unusual step to take,” Nigel Blackler acknowledges, “but at the time there wasn’t a national roads programme so we had to find a way of bringing forward the improvement.”

 

Cornwall Council put in £10M, the European Union pledged £20M and Government committed £30M. “If the Road Investment Strategy had been around we wouldn’t have taken the lead, but this approach suited the set of circumstances at the time,” he adds.

 

“We probably brought forward the road improvement by five years.”

 

In the end, however, the European programme was not ready to accept bids. The Government increased its contribution to £50M and Europe’s promise of £20M was set against the forthcoming Chiverton to Carland Cross upgrade, a 14km dualling which is included in RIS1.

 

“We continue to work closely with Highways England to develop improvements to the A38 and have a number of further proposals put forward for RIS2,” Nigel Blackler adds.

 

On the railways the council is currently working with Network Rail and train operator Great Western to reduce the length of signalling ‘blocks’ on the line between Plymouth and

Penzance to allow more trains to run.

 

And a further works package to digitise signalling will remove the need for nine Victorian signal boxes. “We have to introduce modern systems to get more out of the railway, but recognise these boxes are important landmarks,” Nigel Blackler says. 

“We are working with the Railway Heritage Trust on how they can be used in future and are keen for one to retain its levers, to showcase an amazing piece of engineering in its full glory.”

 

Elsewhere a new transport interchange is planned at St Erth beside the A30, to encourage motorists to park their cars and take the train.

 

Passengers using sleeper trains that operate between London Paddington and Penzance are promised more room and a better ride when a refurbished fleet enters service later this year. The sleeper maintenance facility will also move from Old Oak Common in west London to a larger yard at Penzance.

 

“It’s important for Cornwall to continue with the sleeper service, given our distance to London, and for the quality of service to improve,” Nigel Blackler adds. “We call the new sleeper England’s longest hotel, with showers provided in new passenger lounges at Penzance, Truro and Paddington.”

 

Cornwall’s connectivity to the rest of the UK was severely tested in February 2014 when heavy storms washed away railway track at Dawlish in Devon. Authorities rallied to make alternative transport services available and work is now being taken forward to improve resilience.

 

“There was a good response from the transport sector to Dawlish, with more flights put on and diversionary routes created for buses and coaches to park and ride sites,” Nigel Blackler says. “The priority now is to make the Dawlish line more resilient and Network Rail is looking to overcome the risk of cliff instability around the seaward line and two estuaries.”

 

There is definitely merit, he adds, in exploring the building of a new line that either bypasses Dawlish or travels further north around Dartmoor. “We need to start thinking about this now and it is important we don’t lose the ambition. Schemes of that scale take some working up.”

 

Air travel to the county is also a priority for the council, which manages the airport at Newquay. In 2014 a four year ‘public service obligation’ was agreed with Government to fund Flybe services to Gatwick after services had stopped. Passenger numbers increased in that time from around 90,000 to 157,000.

 

Cornwall Council is also developing a ‘One Public Transport’ system to improve co-ordination, timetabling and ticketing between services including trains and buses. “The next two years will be really important for transport in Cornwall; a lot will come to fruition in terms of road and rail upgrades and improved services,” Nigel Blackler says. “We are entering an exciting phase.”