A row has erupted between the Labour and Conservative candidates for the North East mayoral elections over significant delays to the Northumberland Line railway project.

Kim McGuinness, Labour’s Police and Crime Commissioner for Northumbria and the candidate for the upcoming mayoral race, said Cllr Guy Renner-Thompson “must” reveal the costs of the railway setback.

It comes after Northumberland County Council admitted that three of the six stations on the £166 million line were unlikely to open until 2025.

Wansbeck MP Ian Lavery also called for ‘honesty’ about the situation after the delays at Bedlington, Blyth Bebside and Northumberland Park were revealed.

Cllr Renner-Thompson – the county council’s cabinet member for education – hit back and said refused to take “lectures” from “hapless” Labour politicians.

Ms McGuinness also referenced Cllr Renner Thompson’s previous comments on the Leamside Line in County Durham.

She said: “When Guy announced he would be standing as mayor, he gave an interview asking why Durham needed more than £1bn for a new railway, insisting train lines are just ‘some metal rails on some gravel’. Then it emerged his County Council, in which he is a senior cabinet member, has admitted the multi-million pound Northumberland line railway project is massively delayed.

“Guy is clearly not a transport expert, but he needs to tell us what the cost over-spend is as a result of the council delays. He’s a cabinet member, he must surely be asking these questions at County Hall.

“If Guy wants to be mayor he needs to get on the phone to his Tory mates in Government and demand we get the money to both reopen the railway line in Durham and ensure all of Northumberland’s promised new stations are opened on day one.”

Mr Lavery added: “We have politicians going round pretending like they’ve delivered something when in reality we only have half a railway. People need to be honest about what caused these delays, how much they have cost and when we will finally get our completed railway.”

The Northumberland Line delays have been blamed on ‘incredible engineering challenges’ faced by the construction team. These include problems caused by former mine networks in southeast Northumberland.

Responding to his Labour opponents, Cllr Renner-Thompson pointed to the Conservatives’ record of delivering the project.

He said: “I’ll take no lectures from hapless Labour hopefuls about the Northumberland Line which will open later this year thanks only to a Conservative Government and Conservative Council working together. The project, like any major infrastructure project, is liable to have complications such as ground conditions, especially given the mining heritage of the southeast.

“Three stations will be open by the summer and three will open next year. Labour has been talking for decades about opening this line with no action.

“Now that the Conservatives are actually making it happen all they can do is talk it down and try to find faults in what will be a transformative project for our region. I’m in regular contact with senior government colleagues in the DfT.

“The Northumberland Line is proof that Tories working together deliver for the region, and is why I know I can deliver on the Leamside Line in Durham if elected as Mayor in May.”

The Northumberland Line will bring passenger rail back to the southeast part of Northumberland for the first time since the Beatles were in the charts after the original line was closed in 1965 as part of the Beeching cuts.

It will connect Ashington, Bedlington and Blyth with Newcastle, aiming to reduce the use of cars and drive economic growth by allowing easier access to jobs.

Proposals for reintroducing passenger services date back to the late 1990s, but things gathered pace in the 2010s under both Labour and Conservative administrations at County Hall. Feasibility studies were carried out under Labour before the Conservatives came to power in 2017 and continued with the plans, securing Government funding for the project in 2021.