Support the Leicester-Heathrow-Brighton 'not via London' project

Basically we want a through semi fast service from Leicester - Brighton via a new Heathrow sub-surface station 'not via London' freeing up loads of seats, saving time and giving rail users a pleasurable experience travelling by rail. For this project to proceed we need big backers to be sourced and enticed to take an interest. Rebuilding Great Central south of the Leicester-Nuneaton line to Calvert and Calvert - Grendon - is one phase. Seconly but not necessarily after but ideally alongside is rebuilding Guildford-Brighton via Horsham. Horsham for access to Gatwick from the south, minimising path take duration on the Brighton Main Line. Linking Gatwick with Heathrow direct by rail would be a good thing regardless of your views or poltics over Heathrow itself or not. A third phase is that bodies have called for Guildford-Woking-Heathrow but stop short of advocating a through route to link without changing trains to Old Oak Common and the Chiltern Main Line for onwards to a variety of destinations. Guildford has direct links with Reading and Oxford for example, Heathrow - the corridor - Brighton and Calvert is to be made into another new town of some size - will want better links and journey routing than just access to London or Milton Keynes for example. We have to offer seamless journeys and the Great Central would be handy for passenger and freight capacity creation, end to end via core route utilisation and bring back to the rail network Brackley, Daventry/Southam and Lutterworth. Fine detail needs working out but our strong belief is that the diverse market dynamic makes it a worthy countender for more studies and business case making and once that is forth coming by potential investors, firmer commitments to see it as a project maybe in alliance with TOCs and the company charged with building East-West Rail - they could all feed each other. Accommodation into the tracks at Calvert is critical to find a way and let's hope HS2 and the East-West Rail can include provision for a flyover / grade separated access to/from GCML and Calvert-Grendon for example. If you support or are interested please join ERTA and swell our ranks as we need teams of volunteers to help us on a number of fronts. Enquiries to T. 0208 940 4399, E. simon4barber@gmail.com