Last week saw the launch of a new consultation on East West Rail (EWR) – the strategic infrastructure project that aims to drive growth between Oxford, Milton Keynes and Cambridge. John Gale, a senior planner for Savills Central Planning, discusses the latest proposals.
The new consultation focuses on the final route choices from Bletchley to Bedford and looks again at the options for the route from Bedford to Cambridge – ahead of a Development Consent Order (DCO) for this section in 2025/6.
The General Election delayed the consultation process, which was intended to have taken place over the Summer. The whole scheme was then put under review by the new Government as part of its wider consideration of road and rail projects, under which the A303 tunnel and other infrastructure plans were halted.
What are the current plans?
Phase one of the project, from Oxford to Bletchley, has been physically completed and the first test train completed the route in mid-October. Further trials are expected into 2025 with a likely opening later in 2025 to the public.
This will connect Oxford to Milton Keynes directly by rail for the first time ever – currently a one and a half to two-hour journey via the midlands and with one or two changes. Under the plans this will become a simple 40-minute non-stop journey, linking one of the oldest cities in the country with the newest one, with Milton Keynes having achieved city status in 2022.
Significant economic benefits
What sets East West Rail apart from those projects which have fallen away under the new Government’s spending cuts is its clear economic benefits. By creating a new route across the middle of the country – linking Oxford, Milton Keynes, Bedford, and Cambridge – there will be positive growth around these existing settlements and new hubs between.
Future residents might live in or around Milton Keynes and commute to either Oxford or Cambridge, or they could choose to live in the new hubs around Winslow, Tempsford or Cambourne. Another of these interim locations will be the area around Wixhams in Bedfordshire – where significant housing has already been built and where Universal Studios is proposing to open its first ever European theme park in the next decade.
Early indications are that the Universal theme park could be a game changer with the possibility of it becoming the biggest employer in the county over time. There are also implications for improvements in local infrastructure – with the Government potentially offering a package of improvements to help secure investment. This would have ancillary benefits for further housing and employment growth in the sub-region.
Will it actually happen?
This project has been 20 years in the planning and execution, and it is not over the line yet, but it is looking increasingly like it will be completed – perhaps by the late 2030s. At which point there could be arguments to further extend the service on existing lines, so that there might one day be options for a service between Felixstowe in the east to Cardiff or even Swansea in the west.
Meanwhile, the whole of the route would have a greatly increased sustainability for new housing sites along it and can offer a number of locations for new settlements or large urban extensions. This would open up more jobs to a wider number of commuters and help grow the economy across the length of the line.
The rail line would also be a hybrid electric route – further reducing the carbon footprint of the rolling stock. It would also enable more than 250,000 lorry journeys a year to be diverted onto the railway with the proposed levels of freight services.
Beyond housing and employment
Education could be another potential benefit of EWR. Milton Keynes has been looking at ways of bringing an under-graduate university to the city to join the Open University – with a likely location being the one vacant block in the city centre. And whilst various institutions have looked at branching out to MK it certainly won’t harm the city by joining with Oxford and, in the future, Cambridge, given their international reputation for further education and tech spinouts.
What now?
The consultation is open until January 24, 2025 and stakeholders and the public are invited to share their thoughts on the detailed scheme to help shape the next stage of the process. There are a number of in-person events along the route of the line between now and mid-January and some online events too.
Following this the team at East West Rail will make final changes and then there will be one last statutory consultation later in 2025 on the refined scheme before the final submission of the DCO most likely in 2026.
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