A Primer Document on the Proposed Cheadle Station and its effects on Ashley Station and our train service

Background

The opening of a new station at Cheadle, is a political “hot potato”, having been promised by several councillors and MPs in this “swing seat” area. There used to be a Cheadle North station (on what is now a freight only line), closed by Beeching; as well as Cheadle South station, but the latter wasclosed in 1917! Since then, people have used Gatley Station nearby, which has four trains per hour in each direction. Gatley station used to be known as “Gatley for Cheadle” until 1974. The “new” Cheadle station is proposed to be built on the site of the former Cheadle South Station, and it will be handy for the Alexandra Hospital.

The Issues

The journey from Chester to Manchester Piccadilly takes some one and a half hours. It used to be one and a quarter hours until the railway was diverted via Stockport rather than via Sale, to allow for Metrolink to be built. This journey time is a block on popularity as a commuter link except from the Greater Manchester border onwards (a much shorter time).

The railway has two fixed timing points that cannot be altered (as they interact with multiple other timetabled routes in complicated ways at heavily congested parts of the rail network). These are: Mickle Trafford (just east of Chester Station) and Edgeley Junction No. 2 (as the line joins into the tracks at Stockport station). Northwich station is also a key timing point as the Liverpool to Crewe route crosses the Mid Cheshire Line here.

Adding in an additional station adds in additional journey time. This is because the train has to slowdown, stop, pick up/drop off passengers, then accelerate away. This is known in railway circles as Dwell Time.

As the proposed Cheadle Station is on the fastest section of the route, the braking and acceleration times are the greatest. This means that Cheadle Station will require a dwell time of four minutes. By comparison, the dwell time for Ashley is two minutes as the series of nearby stations are close to each other with limited acceleration and braking required between stops.

The trains cannot run any faster than they do on the line due to permanent speed limits along the line, along with the acceleration and braking performance of the train stock used (which is not scheduled for replacement any time soon). The railway itself would require some upgrade work to permit higher train speeds; not a cheap thing to do.

The only way to add in Cheadle Station as a stop in the current timetable would be for Ashley and Plumley Stations (the two least used ones this side of Northwich) to be omitted from the schedule whenever a train is to stop at Cheadle. This means that Cheadle will receive a train once every two hours, whilst Ashley and Plumley will also receive train every two hours. All the other stations along the route will retain an hourly service. This is known as “skip stopping”. To clarify, trains would either stop at Cheadle; or Ashley and Plumley on each journey.

The local Rail User Group (an independent membership organisation advocating for passengers on the Mid Cheshire Line) is MCRUA, the Mid Cheshire Rail Users Association. MCRUA has been pressing Network Rail, the Department for Transport and other bodies for a two trains per hour service from Northwich to Manchester (in each direction) for the line for many years. When the Northern (trains) franchise was started in 2015, they pledged to meet this service level. It never materialised.

The thinking behind the second-service-per-hour was that it would be a “semi-fast” service that would only call at the principal stations, Northwich, Knutsford, Altrincham, Stockport and Manchester Piccadilly in order to provide a “commuter friendly” service that would likely increase train use overprivate car use. If put in place, this service could incorporate a stop at Cheadle, giving Cheadle, Ashley and Plumley an hourly service (e.g. no degradation to the current Ashley train frequency). Thisnadditional service is unlikely to happen at present until funding appears from a “magic money tree”.

The affect on the Ashley Train service as and when Cheadle Station goes ahead was acknowledged in Parliament in March 2026. Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport Keir Mather MP confirmed that the service reallocations reducing Ashley and Plumley calls to one train every two hours are necessary to accommodate Cheadle’s stops (Hansard; Cheadle Train Station – Volume 782: debated on Wednesday 18 March 2026).

In terms of the current development proposals being promulgated by Tatton Estates, the fact that Ashley has only one train per hour in each direction means that it fails the “Well-Connected Station” definition, as formalised in the Glossary of the NPPF (National Planning Policy Framework: August 2026). Furthermore, Ashley cannot be described having a “reasonable prospect of being served due to planned upgrades or through agreement with the rail operator”. Rather, our service looks likely to be made worse due to the planned creation of a Cheadle Station. Make sure you mention this in your objections!

Ralph Warrington

Ashley Parish Councillor

August 2026