British Regional Transport Association (BRTA) calls for extension of the rail link to Stansted progress news

21-02-25 Update Zoom Meeting - all welcome:

See: https://brtarail.com/events/ 

Scroll down to Monday 24th February for Stansted Zoom Meeting. 

Any queries or to join our update loop send to richard.brta@gmail.com

13 February 2025

Press Release

 

British Regional Transport Association (BRTA) calls for extension of the rail link to Stansted to arc across to reunite east and west Essex as one east-west rail link with Braintree and Colchester

 

BRTA convened a meeting on Saturday 8^th February at Braintree to bring people together to discuss the matter that if Stansted is to expand, the public should rightly ask their MP’s, Councils and Government to demand contributions to extending the rail link eastwards to link with Braintree and Colchester including a new Parkway Station for Great Dunmow.

 

Benefits would include:

1.     Decluttering the A120 in a context of massive infill development. The road is accident prone and hazardous and needs the relief a proper rail link can offer.

2.     Reunite east and west Essex offering train travel between places like Cambridge and Chelmsford, Harlow to Colchester and all in between.

3.     The meeting also discussed re-connecting Maldon to the main line by rail, a new route would be needed, a study is called for.

 

Richard Pill said after the meeting “Essex deserves better joined-up rail connectivity and we call on councils and others to demand the rail link and routing for it be included in expansion plans for the airport. We aim to hold a Zoom Meeting on 24^th February and all are invited, further details via richard.brta@gmail.com”

 

End of Press Release

 

Further comment: Richard Pill, BRTA CEO 01234 225068

BRTA Response to Rachel Reeve's Statement in Eynsham, Oxfordshire January 2025

Routes have not been shown in consultations since 2019 and ours never! So how can the public objectively have their say or choices? Latest news on Airports, Capacity and overheated SouthEast must lend to a reconsideration of these routes betweem Bedford and Tempsford and how physical links at Tempsford could enlarge rail's market share more for passenger and freight operations?

The statement of Rachel Reeves last week was a scatter gun back-of-a-fag-packet desperado, short of fine detail and blinkered to fit of intent if you were ever going to put people, places, land use, life balances and the environment first.

Government clearly has not thought through the application of its ideas and how much, having locked itself to not charge Income Tax to the better off, how funding will be done? Private or public, there's no such thing as a free lunch!

Our views are as follows:

1. Heathrow Third Runway, the place is already overcrowded, congested and blighted, would it not make sense if we must have such, to spread the load and consider rerouting East-West Rail to serve a 4th London Airport at Thurleigh and run the railway via St Neots and onwards to Cambridge? Moreover, Heathrow needs more and better rail links anyway like Heathrow Southern and the Reading arm. https://heathrowrail.com/

2. On East-West Rail, we do need a rail link if not 2 or 3 more. Our stance of routing has been ignored. We wanted east of Bedford via St John's (see attached) and new-build from the Willington area to approach the Tempsford plains from the south-west not north-west as the current Northern Route offers. It will serve no-one in North Bedfordshire with probably long tunnelling (like HS2) rather than a station! It is a sad irony, that when we launched a Bedford-Sandy extension of the Bedford-Bletchley rail link for East Coast Main Line (ECML) connectivity in 1987, councils objected saying no case, but would not fund a study and also would not entertain it because of 'blockages' which then was less-than 30 houses albeit more expensive houses than those in Poets. Now we have 60 houses to be knocked down and more and the case, as year after year studies rather than delivery was the name of the game (writing ordinary advocates off on cost grounds) and Bedford Borough Council and the former County Council opposed a bridge over the old railway route in 1993 despite other councils writing asking for support for the railway, so A421 Southern Bypass became another blockage to our route. Then from 2017 the 2019 Consultation put the Northern Route but not our route, so it biased the people and has repeated this pattern, yes people want an East-West Rail Link but they can only vote for what is presented to them, rather than the options in this study: https://www.bedford.gov.uk/files/bedford-ewr-station-choice-wider-impacts-final-11-01-24.pdf/download?inline

So we are where we are. If Northern Route goes pear shaped, then ours stands ready to be looked at and supported, but Office for Road and Rail needs tackling on special dispensation for a Level Crossing at Priory Park entrance and also a bridge over the railway at Cardington Road, if a Level Crossing is not suitable, although it was once there until 1982 ish.

Funny how objections to dualling A421/A428 Oxford-Bedford-Cambridge have been muffled compared to the railway throughout, where will all this road-based traffic go upon meeting the urban interfaces like Bedford and Cambridge which both share gridlocked roads at times?

Meanwhile we will continue to bang our drum for satellite stations for Bedford like Oakley, Sharnbrook, Kempston Retail and putting Ampthill back on the railway map.

Thank you for your interest.

Yours sincerely,

Richard Pill

BRTA CEO

https://brtarailvolunteer.blogspot.com/ and https://brtarail.com/become-a-member/

Write to your MP about this as well, given government finds money and permits new roads, but not this and similar other rail links? How will modal shift back to rail happen, let alone the environmental needs for cleaner transport like rail offers, ever be done? https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/24897104.government-cant-afford-oxfordshire-rail-link-says-minister/

Write to your MP and challenge the government's stance: https://members.parliament.uk/members/commons