Woodhorn railway station

In the early 2010s, Northumberland County Council (NCC) became interested in restoring passenger services along the remaining freight-only section of the former Blyth and Tyne Railway between Benton Junction and Woodhorn. In June 2013 NCC commissioned Network Rail to complete a GRIP 1 study to examine the best options for the scheme.[6] The GRIP 1 study was received by NCC in March 2014 and in June 2015 they initiated a more detailed GRIP 2 Feasibility Study at a cost of £850,000.[7]

The GRIP 2 study, which NCC received in October 2016, confirmed that the reintroduction of a frequent seven-day a week passenger service between Newcastle and Ashington was feasible and could provide economic benefits of £70 million with more than 380,000 people using the line each year by 2034.[8] The study suggested a new station should be built as a terminus of the newly reopened line.[9] At the time it was suggested that, subject to funding being raised for the £191 million[8] scheme, detailed design work could begin in October 2018 with construction commencing four months later and the first passenger services introduced in 2021[8] though by October 2018 such works were yet to begin.

After receiving the GRIP 2 study, NCC initially announced that they were preceding with a GRIP 3 Study from Network Rail but such a report was not commissioned at the time.[10] Despite a change in the political leadership of Northumberland County Council following the 2017 local elections[11] the authority continued to work towards the reintroduction of a passenger service onto the line,[12] encouraged by the Department for Transport's November 2017 report, A Strategic Vision for Rail, which named the line as a possible candidate for a future reintroduction of passenger services.[13][14] Consequentially, NCC commissioned a further interim study in November 2017 (dubbed GRIP 2B) to determine whether high costs and long timescales identified in the GRIP 2 Study could be reduced by reducing the initial scope of the project but the report failed to deliver on this.[10]

Despite this, the county council has continued to develop the project, announcing a further £3.46 million in funding for a further business case and detailed design study[15] (equivalent to GRIP 3)[10] to be completed by the end of 2019. It is envisaged that passenger trains could be introduced as early as 2022.[15] However, the revised proposals, released in July 2019, are reduced in scope from the plan considered in the 2016 GRIP 2 study and propose 4-phase project[5] to reduce the initial cost of the scheme. Under these plans, the new station at Woodhorn appears to have been dropped in favour of creating new turn-back facilities at Ashington.[5]