A NEW railway station for Cross Hills might never get built despite Craven District Council's decision to donate £10,000 towards the project.

Councillors were told last Thursday that the scheme was dependant on securing cash to build it - estimated at £1 million.

Officials from Railtrack and North Yorkshire County Council met with their Craven counterparts to discuss funding a feasibility study.

This would look into a number of issues including where to put it, exactly what would be built, how it would fit into the signalling structure and how passengers would get to it.

Councillors voted to give £10,000 to the study, despite fierce opposition from some of their colleagues who branded it a waste of money and feared it would just disappear into the coffers of Railtrack.

And they were unhappy that Railtrack was not prepared to put any money into the scheme because it would not make any money out of the station.

And North Yorkshire County Council 's Chris Millns said the authority would also have to submit a bid for Government money to pay for the station to be built.

But he warned that without the detailed study the project could not go any further.

'If the station is ever going to be built then a detailed study has to be done because without all the information we can't go ahead to a bid for any money,' he said.

This was the third time Craven councillors had debated whether to help pay for the £42,000 study.

Earlier this month members of the economic and development committee said 'no' but were told to re-think their decision at a subsequent meeting of all councillors.

Richard Wrighton, from Railtrack, which looks after tracks and stations, said it would not be prepared to help pay for Cross Hills railway station to be built because it would make no money out of it.

'We have no intention of investing £1 million in a station unless there was a commercial rate of return,' he said.

'We don't get any benefits in terms of new stations on the network because any money made goes to the train operators.'

Coun Jan Gordon said she was unhappy that train operator Northern Spirit was only ploughing £9,500 into the project, even though they would make money from any new station.

And Coun David Crawford added that the council was already paying twice through the money it paid to County Hall.

The railway station would benefit businesses in South Craven, according to Coun Ken Hart who added that council money had been used to benefit private companies before, in the form of subsidised bus fares for the elderly.

Fellow South Craven councillor Ian Bannister made a passionate plea to fellow members, urging them to vote in favour of making a donation.

'It has already been decided that the station should be built,' he said. 'The money that we provide for this project is not going to fall into the wrong hands and it is going to be used in a responsible way.

'South Craven is the largest conurbation in terms of population outside Skipton and it doesn't have a station.

'This is essential for the development of the area and for us to stand aside and say we're not going to fund this because we can't see any benefits would be suicidal.'

And committee chairman Coun Joan Ibbotson reminded colleagues that the idea for the re-opening of the station at Cross Hills had come from the public.

'It was the public that want a railway station and it's the public who you serve,' she said.

In voting to donate £10,000 towards the next stage of the project, members also suggested that parish councils in South Craven could be asked to contribute.

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