Shoreham to Horsham Rail Link

 The British Regional Transport Association (BRTA) sees the following in favour of reopening this rail link with deviations where blockages now exist:

1. Direct South Coast to Horsham, Gatwick and Guildford rail access for further afield.

2. Save changing at Brighton to get to London

3. Inward footfall, visitorship, spend and regenerative flows minus the traffic

4. More freight off the roads and on the rails with portal connectivity, employment and supply chain stimulus.

We appreciate over the years like so many places, councils have been tasked with providing housing allocations, but not with former rail route protection. Thus all the traffic from residential and industrial expansion goes onto local roads, which then at cost and land-take, are upgraded and so the pattern spirals. That impacts urban and rural air quality, noise levels and environmental blight. If we don't want the pattern, we need to recover select pieces of railway to give modal choices, create modal balance and enable lifestyle choices to 99% car-road dependency cultures. 

BRTA calls for a study into reopening Shoreham to Horsham rail link and how problems structural and engineering can be overcome and cycleways re-routed either alongside a railway or diverted to give routing options. You retain the amenity, but rail handles bulk people and goods, is faster end-to-end and opens up areas to inward investment whilst retaining their land mass and natural beauty.

This may be the last chance, but growing places need more and better rail-based access to and from. You can't put heads in the sand and pretend the glaring gap and associated deficits do not exist. Indeed, were this railway restored to modern standards, it could be part of a regional through route between Brighton and Chichester and Reading/Heahtrow respectively for further afield travel.

At this stage we ask:

1. the remaining corridor is protected adequate width for a twin-track railway corridor

2. a policy of relocation where possible to restore the route. Not all houses need demolition, but enough to enable railway recovery or lands adjacent even bypassing growth areas, to enable a railway end-to-end to be functional.

3. The study can look at business cases, engineering, environmental impact and feasibility to base policy on and advocate with neighbouring councils and agencies to fund the reopening with full government support and that of leveraging in other investors.

Please consider this proposition and I hope our visionary diagram helps put it in a regional and strategic context. 

https://brtarail.com/southeast/ Enquiries ceo@brtarail.com

BRTA Aylesbury Forum, Saturday, 17 October 2026 1pm lunch, 2-4pm business at The White Hart, Exchange Street, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, HP20 1UR

 BRTA Aylesbury Forum, Saturday, 17 October 2026 1pm lunch, 2-4pm business at The White Hart, Exchange Street, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, HP20 1UR 01296-468440

Convenor: Simon Barber Email address: admin@brtarail.com 020-8940-4399 or 07522-374740.

1.  Appointment of someone to chair the meeting

2.  Appointment of a note taker

3.  Aylesbury, current update on passenger and freight operations and new opportunities?

4.  The Aylesbury link – Simon to hand out diagram for discussion and how/who will volunteer to progress it?

5.  New Parkway Station for the Claydon area on the East-West Rail Link with Milton Keynes and Bedford? A volunteer to email around it and pursue it.

6.  Rails to Brackley, old Great Central is blocked by HS2, so new-build local conventional rail alongside with new build Parkway Station to the east of Brackley growth area, bus link to Silverston and arc around the area to rejoin old GC north of Brackley as a Phase 2 to a new south Rugby Parkway Station? Needs a study and support. We need a volunteer to pursue it, email around and court support.

7.   Any Other Business

8.  Day, date, time and place of next forum?

9.  Please note: Everyone buys their own food and drink. People are welcome to join BRTA and work with us and our free email loop via ceo@brtarail.com

More Freight By Rail - government has a pivotal role!

 This article may also be of interest: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cw8r61n1z28jo

If we had Northampton-Market Harborough rebuilt: https://brtarail.com/n2mh/ Then Felixstowe to Northampton via Leicester and Peterborough would be possible and take on more, the A14-A45 corridor which even the BBC admit is 'congested'?! Cambridge-Bedford-Northampton is another way, but proceeding at a glacial pace. Reality is we need more rails for more trains now and switching requires investment and that question of where the money is coming from. Meanwhile, the Lower Thames Road Tunnels is to sink £11 billion whereas BRTA would have preferred a rail-based solution instead (Channel Tunnel-East Anglia and vice versa).

BRTA seeks to bridge these gaps in advocating more by rail in infrastructure terms, not necessarily new money, but values, priorities and putting people, places and the environment first at the heart of planning, policy and actions. Therefore tailoring development to allow recovery of former rail routes and new-build rail corridors is prudent and failure to do so, adds to cost and relocation aggro, which no-one wants, but is the inevitable conflict if protection is not done now. That does not mean fallow or dormancy, but ensuring clearances do enable a railway rebuild with electrification to be viable. It is currently in the balance on a nationwide scale with pushes to develop, afterthought about road impacts and rail alternatives. Contact ceo@brtarail.com

BRTA Central Beds Forum - Dunstable calling!

 BRTA Forum at Dunstable: Wednesday, 7 October 2026 1pm lunch, 2-4pm business

The Gary Cooper, Grove Park, Court Drive, Dunstable, Bedfordshire LU5 4GP

01582-471452

(Guided busway at College Drive – then Court Drive)

Please see: https://brtarail.com/events/ for more information, but the agenda itself is self explanatory. It may be more people attend, so Simon will bring spare copies of the agenda and people can sit on different tables and follow it themselves at their own pace. Please come, all welcome. Sign the attendance list for future events and news.

Like so many disenfranchised locations, bereft of a basic rail link to the wider network and them to a location, Dunstable needs more substantive footfall, spend and regeneration with the rail infrastructure before any more spread? 

Please give us your support - join or affiliate to BRTA as an investment. 

BRTA Central Beds Forum (Dunstable) Wednesday, 7 October 2026 1pm lunch, 2-4pm business
The Gary Cooper, Grove Park, Court Drive, Dunstable, Bedfordshire LU5 4GP
01582-471452
(Guided busway at College Drive – then Court Drive)

Agenda:

1. Appointment of someone to chair the meeting

2. Some volunteer to take notes

3. Introduction to BRTA, attendance list and invite to consider joining

4. Apologies for absence

5. Dunstable needs re-railing! Over a 20-year time frame, planning, policy and relocation packages need to be nurtured to inform a new rail link between Luton and Dunstable. The busway would need relocation or abandonment, with more buses running on road spaces. The rail link could deliver hundreds of people per train to spend money in the town centre and give a quick rail-based access to the L&D Hospital, Luton Main Railway Station and maybe, a duck-under to join the slows integrated with Thameslink for Parkway Station (Airport) and onwards and vice versa to Dunstable. If you agree:

a. Join BRTA and encourage friends

b. Offer to help, CEO can assign roles – fund raising, campaigning, talking to politicians, convening meetings, coffee mornings and growing teams. You start today; your successors will reap the benefit!

6. Does Dunstable need a new north-south road bypass? Leaving via a new roundabout west of Dunstable Northern Bypass Roundabout with Watling Street, go into tunnels under the Chalk Hills to link with A5 Watling Street Redbourn Roundabout.

7. Common grounds: both 6 and 7 need studies to identify what needs doing, timescales of possible, costs and how that can move towards deliver medium to long term progressively. Currently the ideas need public support, get organised, be local led and campaign all the way to Government support and approval sooner than later.

8. Does Dunstable have safe cycling routes, enough pedestrian care facilities, toilets, cash point accesses and integration? Are local roads overloaded, what impact pollution from too much traffic? What of buses, cause and effect, under used or over used? Cuts and improvements, how do we strike the balance? What can be done?

9. Any Other Business

10.     Day, Date, Time and Place of next Central Beds Meeting – Sandy’s turn! Other date sees: https://brtarail.com/events/ We rotate Flitwick, Dunstable and Sandy (x3 per year). Does not stop others joining and facilitating more in their area themselves under the BRTA banner.

Notes: Everyone pays their own way. Please join our email free loop: ceo@brtarail.com

Oxford-Witney-Carterton, give it your support!

 Scroll up or down for best results, but here is the link: https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/26255160.hopes-witney-oxford-train-line-finished-2050/?cx_testId=4&cx_testVariant=cx_1&cx_artPos=7&ref=mostread_p_reco#cxrecs_s

This is fantastic news. 

Please email your local MP in support of it: https://members.parliament.uk/members/commons?sort=1 We all need to be vigilant and keep the pressure up. Lulls send signals of indifferent, pro-affirma support breeds more pro-affirma support - it is contagious either way!

We need the government to get behind it and switch funding from roads to rails more, beit cancelling the waste of £11 billion Lower Thames Road Tunnels and choose local rail alternatives instead. Oxford-Milton Keynes has been bandied about at £7 billion, some 40 miles of reconstruction, so Witney and Carterton should be a snip of it! It is about morals and priorities, rail creams off excess traffic loads like the A40 presents, it delivers sustainable footfall, spend and regeneration growth and give all ages and types, modal choices more than just endless development clogging up congested roads and car dependency lifestyles, which are unhealthy. 

Rail is good value for money and a nationwide government supported programme is just the ticket to keep Britain moving.

https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/26255160.hopes-witney-oxford-train-line-finished-2050/?cx_testId=4&cx_testVariant=cx_1&cx_artPos=7&ref=mostread_p_reco#cxrecs_s and https://brtarail.com/oxford-witney-carterton/

Email ceo@brtarail.com to join our free email loop for updates.

Guildford to Horsham Rail Link via Cranleigh! Give it your support please.

 Basically I have told Simon to convene coffee meetings at Costa in Guildford and together for locals to grow a team to take it forward. I do the monthly on-line meeting and we welcome people to join and discuss G-C-H more. 

I am too remote and not resourced to attend the physical locality.

I welcome ideas on what needs doing to best rouse locals to join BRTA and get involved. 

The leaflet is our toe in the water. There more it can be done in Cranleigh, villages, Guildford and Horsham areas, the better, volunteers or lack of are a moot point.

New council for Surrey to be or not to be, we do need council support ideally.

MP support - if 5 people emailed her, it would mandate action apparently. She was based at the Uni up by the Cathedral, I wonder if she could get some students interested in lending a hand?

I have bcc'd our members, just in case others want to join-in too.

MP's contacts can be found: https://members.parliament.uk/members/commons?sort=1

Heathrow expansion is back on the agenda and Southern Rail Link: https://heathrowrail.com/

linking Guildford, the reverse to Horsham via Cranleigh - if only we can get the promoters to think our way a bit more? 

Government is quiet about more rail infrastructure except a London centric plan of Elizabeth Line extension to Staines. Would the Windsor link be included I wonder? https://windsorlink.co.uk/video-master-plan/

Who gets there first wins, but the versatility of rails to be used by different trains should not be lost to us, ditto platforms and stations. We want Heathrow Link to extend to Old Oak Common (OOC) for link up and onwards via a tunnel to the Chiltern Main Line for Banbury and Aylesbury arcs to Guildford etc and Guildford to the east-west rail 'not via London'. It has been mentioned of a curve from east to north at Woking for South London/Waterloo operations to Heathrow as well. I have been told Guildford has capacity problems, our line gives more for more. 

https://brtarail.com/guildford-cranleigh-horsham/

All enquiries via ceo@brtarail.com

Great Central Corridor re-rail with new-build?

Please support our call for a new-build of the former Great Central Corridor to a modern railway twin-track solution. Going from West London alongside HS2 north of Aylesbury to east of Brackley new-build and veering north to the north of Brackley and ending up at Leicester Central (new-build) via and serving Rugby, Magna Park, Lutterworth and giving congestion relief and emissions reduction to M1 and creating passenger and freight by rail capacity more. 

It needs investors and talent bringing together with the Government to take the project forward. Magna Park is one of the biggest industrial centres without a railway serving it in Europe! 

Join BRTA and vote with your feet and wallets. 

It is only pie-in-the-sky as long as people do nothing and the rot prevails! It would link with the Oxford-Cambridge East - West Rail and enable trains from Southampton and Wales and all in-between as well as via  a new railway serving Heathrow, link with Guildford and possibly the Channel Tunnel. It starts here!

Our events, including a Public Meeting in Leicester are on our website: https://brtarail.com/events/ and our Blogspot is via a click to: https://brtarailvolunteer.blogspot.com/

Please join in with us and be part of the picture!

When we talk of the Great Central and population spread, we in my opinion need to take into account the toll of two World Wars and the cull of men in particular to those generations. However, now the population has grown significantly in the 60 years since closure and we have a situation of pushes for development everywhere without new rail infrastructure. That means the impact will go on the roads, fuelling more roads and spiralling health related pollution issues. 

Moreover the following can also be observed:

1. WCML south of Rugby will still have increased passenger and freight demand regardless of HS2. 

2. M1 doesn't take much for 10 mile tailbacks, will only exacerbate.

3. Magna Park (one of the biggest industrial parks in Europe) and new-town expanded

Lutterworth are new markets not served by any railways.

4. Leicester is expanding and the Midland Main Line has many issues which need additional rail options for more by rail.

5. We are not suggesting religiously following every inch of course of old railway, rather the corridor needs re-railing in our view with a new-build interpretation to normal, conventional rail designs of say 125 mph for passenger and goods by rail more.

6. At the southern end you have Old Oak Common Interchange, East-West Rail (Oxford for Bristol, Southampton and South Wales corridors) and more options for Aylesbury.

7. Brackley is an expanding area, HS2 has been pushed through without any provision for a station, so a new line to the east with a Parkway Station (a bus link with Silverstone too) and heading north rather than HS2 North-West, would serve Woodford Halse, Willoughby, Southam/Daventry/A425 Corridor areas and a new South Rugby Parkway, new route to link with Leicester-Nuneaton and a new route to a new terminal station Leicester Central. 

At this stage we are calling for general support, protection of route corridor space and for a study to look at it as a contingency going forwards. Relocations, compulsory purchase with compensation all has to be considered through the normal processes. This is common to most reopening of closed lines or new-builds as corridors have not been protected despite future generations potentially needing the rail-based transport choices they can offer?

If we do not act, chained to history, we ignore the future. Whatever HS2 offers end-to-end, it leaves much undone interim and enjoys £1 billion per mile investment whilst austerity seems to be for other postcodes on a range of issues including reopening restored rail links to places like Bideford, Witney, Ripon, Cranleigh, Bridport, Ross-on-Wye, Coalville and Keswick for example).  

We need people to join BRTA and help us progress it more inch by inch to governmental support and ultimately adoption as they did with Greengauge. Investment in rail transport more, must be made nationwide, otherwise politics and postcode lotteries, mean comprehgensive rail choices are curtailed.

https://brtarail.com/greatcentralcorridor/

Please do this survey and remember to support BRTA and its projects: https://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/BPFLGL/

https://brtarail.com/our-campaigns/