Partners

The North Cheshire Community Rail Partnership (NCCRP) is a non-profit partnership comprising of the University of Chester, the railway organisations and local authorities.

Established in 2018, our purpose is to increase support and community engagement along the line of Hooton to Helsby and Chester to Warrington to deliver a better rail experience for everyone.

Our fantastically supportive partners work in conjunction with us to enable us to incorporate community wellbeing with social and economic development to promote sustainable, healthy travel.

You can find out more about our partners and the services they offer here:

Northern Trains Limited operates regional and commuter services across the North of England.

The operator has over 6,100 employees and provides more than 2,800 services every day, making them the largest train operator outside of London. 100 million passenger journeys are made each year on the network serving over 15 million people. Northern services call at over 500 stations (approximately 20% of all UK stations) and they directly manage 478 of these stations. The fleet comprises of 333 trains running on nearly 3,000km of route track.

Northern Trains Limited are committed to the principles of community rail development within the communities they serve.

Cheshire West and Chester Council are committed to producing a sustainable community strategy to improve local, social and environmental services. Working closely with the Local Development Framework and Local Transport Plan teams to ensure consistency of delivery, they are striving to ensure that West Cheshire will be an even more prosperous and attractive borough by 2026.

Halton Borough Council is the local authority for the Borough of Halton, incorporating the towns of Runcorn and Widnes and is a constituent council of Liverpool City Region Combined Authority.

Halton Borough Council are working hard to ensure that Halton and the Liverpool City Region’s aspirations for regeneration and growth continue to be supported by a high quality and efficient transport network. They aim to achieve this by working with a wide range of stakeholders including local communities, the voluntary sector, external agencies and neighbouring authorities.

Merseyrail prides itself on being the most punctual and reliable rail network in the UK, achieving consistently high scores for passenger satisfaction. Their network offers the most affordable fares in the country and operates over 600 regular services per day, every 15 minutes, to 68 stations throughout the Liverpool City Region.

Merseyrail are community minded, socially responsible and always strive to make a proactive contribution to the improvement and well-being of the local environment, people, stakeholders and the community. Their approach focuses on areas of the community where they feel they can really make a difference.

Merseyrail is committed to living and breathing their values on a day to day basis to ensure delivery of the best possible services to customers, aiming to be genuine, professional, proactive and inclusive in everything thing they do.

Network Rail acts as a facilitator for train operating companies, local authorities and communities helping the railway.

Network Rail are making significant changes in the way they operate to align train operators and franchises bringing track and train closer. The shift to localized community decision making means a better understanding of what passengers want with a greater effectiveness in delivering those changes.

Working closely with Network Rail means delivering bespoke localised solutions with sustainable service changes, station development and innovative approaches to essential station upgrades including disabled access at stations.

The North Cheshire Raul User Group (NRCUG) was established 28 years ago after the closure of the Halton Curve with the sole purpose of seeing the line re-instated for 2-way scheduled services connecting the Liverpool City Region and Liverpool Airport directly with Frodsham, Helsby and Chester. NCRUG additionally champions the needs of the passenger and is constantly monitoring service provision and consulting on potential improvements.

With the Halton Curve project compete NCRUG is focused on improved connectivity with the Wirral and other parts of the region.

Transport for Wales (TfW) operates rail services across Wales and along the English border into Cheshire, Greater Manchester and Liverpool.

Founded in 1839, the University of Chester was the first purpose-built teacher training college in the UK and operates across five campus sites in and around Chester.

The University is proud of its social contributions; locally, regionally, nationally and internationally. Their dedication to localized projects and the improvement of services in and around Chester has made them a valuable participant to the North Cheshire Community Rail Partnership.

Avanti West Coast operator of intercity rail services on the West Coast Main Line, is a joint venture between FirstGroup and Trenitalia, delivering a cleaner, greener railway that drives the West Coast forward.
Avanti are on a mission to revolutionise train travel, linking together the towns and major cities of the UK to create an iconic railway the country can be proud of. There will be 263 more train services every week by 2022 with new routes added, and a much-improved onboard service with enhanced free Wi-Fi, plug sockets, 25,000 brand new seats and improved catering.

Warrington Borough Council is the local authority of Warrington, providing a full range of local government services including Council Tax billing, libraries, social services, processing planning applications, waste collection and disposal, additionally it is a local education authority.

The council's involvement within the NCCRP has meant increased focus on attracting substantial numbers of new passengers to rail services who are currently undertaking their journeys by car.