2024 Non Stat Consultation on EWR- HS2’s Badly-Behaved little Brother whose Parents have learnt no Lessons for his Upbringing.

The position of Cambridge Approaches on EWR is set out here and has not changed. With the release of the NSC on 14 November we have an opportunity to point out problems for our local communities – and there are many. More people formally asking for something probably increases the chances of it happening. There has been movement on the proposal since the 2021 consultation and our “Great Wall of South Cambridgeshire” campaign, but nothing like enough. For many people it would still be hideous and we would all be affected by the years of construction. I try not to look at this video of Calvert too often and definitely not the section starting around 8:50. It shows what haul roads, construction compounds and balancing ponds actually look like. Something you will never find in EWR documentation. I then imagine the view from Chapel Hill across the Bourn Valley described in one of the most famous poems ever written about Cambridge. Then (in 1912), as now, a sea of wheat fields and one of the defining views of Cambridge that the architects of our green belt wanted to preserve in the mid 20th century.¹ They would be turning in their graves. Anyway, here is the section of Rupert Brooke’s poem.

“Is dawn a secret shy and cold
Anadyomene², silver-gold?
And sunset still a golden sea
From Haslingfield to Madingley?
And after, ere the night is born,
Do hares come out about the corn?
Oh, is the water sweet and cool,
Gentle and brown, above the pool?
And laughs the immortal river still
Under the mill, under the mill?
Say, is there Beauty yet to find?
And Certainty? and Quiet kind?
Deep meadows yet, for to forget
The lies, and truths, and pain? . . . oh! yet
Stands the Church clock at ten to three?
And is there honey still for tea?”

Here are some people who care about that view being interviewed by ITV Anglia as the consultation came out.

There is a story in government about how building this railway will create some sort of economic miracle around the Cambridge Biomedical Campus and they are not letting mere facts get in the way of a good story, but remember this chart.

To quote a recent article about the dire water situation in our area. “You can send your legions to war with reality, but eventually we all lose.” The East West Rail Company are one of those legions, who think there are building a Net Zero Railway.

Bizarrely the Transport User Update which also came out with the NSC only seems to refer to the local plans for housing. Without large amounts of EWR dependent housing we are on £14.88million per Cambridge Commuter and no new Cambridge jobs supported. But hey, it’s only taxpayers money being poured down the drain. Who cares? They don’t seem to.

Well, I feel a bit better after that polemic, so back to the purpose of this article: how to fill in the NSC feedback form. If you care about our area (and I know you do), please have your say.

Key Consultation Documents Cambourne to Cambridge

1. Detailed maps
   • Croxton to Toft
   • Comberton to Shelford
   • Cambridge
2. Description (Technical Document)
   • §11 Croxton to Toft
   • §12 Comberton to Shelford
   • §13 Cambridge
3. Online Consultation Questions in Online Feedback Form. The online form allows much more space for answers than the downloadable form.
   • Croxton to Toft (Question 16)
   • Comberton to Shelford (Questions 17 to 20)
   • Cambridge (Question 21) 
   • Route-wide matters (Question 22)
   • About our consultation (Questions 23 to 25)

I suggest having a look at your relevant map note: there are plans and elevations; read the relevant section or subsection of the Technical Document and start writing in your favourite word processor. When you are ready, go through the dialogue for the online feedback form.³

We have until 23:59 on Friday 24 January 2025.

Some Issues Identified So Far (last updated 8 Dec 2024)

[We hope to update this as we go on but here is a starter for 10.]

1. Purple construction fields are way too close to houses they should be at least 150m away.
2. The railway should go under the A603 not over it, and the same is true of the Bourn Brook.
3. There is no evidence that Green Bridges, and Bat Underpasses work for Barbastelles. The proposed route crosses the Core Sustenance Zone of the Eversden and Wimpole Woods SAC, which is a maternity roost.
4. Why is the route so close to southern Harston – why not push it a few hundred metres further south? (Hoffer’s Brook permitting)
5. Having identified the Bronze Aged Cemetery on Money/Chapel Hill, and that it doesn’t even cost more to save it, why is your preferred option to wipe it out? Those people’s remains have been lying in the chalk for 3,000 years, and its one of the most beautiful places in South Cambs (ask Rupert Brooke).
6. Why was there a mined tunnel through Bourn Airfield in the Feedback Report, but a more destructive cut and cover in the current proposals? You have not withdrawn your ridiculous claim that associates EWR with £163billion GVA increase by 2050 so there can’t be a cost problem, surely?
7. Why not do a 16km bored tunnel from north of the A428 to the southern entrance to Cambridge? (Same length as the Chiltern Tunnel on HS2 so the precedent is there). The net cost increase would not be that much (see (6) above), it’s 3km shorter (so all those scientists can get to Oxford more quickly). It would reduce local objections considerably, save a lot of farmland and the Wimpole SAC. It would also reduce congestion on the Royston Line.
8. Given that you have chosen a route that is ill suited to rail freight why not save money and remove support for it?

As we all work on our consultation responses do add your ideas and issues in the comments so other people can see. The more this project gets the criticism it deserves the better. Don’t feel you can only give feedback on the defined questions, you can use Question 22 or even Question 24 to give general feedback like, why on earth are you still working on this project?

1. https://www.cambridge.gov.uk/media/2538/green-belt-study-2002.pdf p.48 ↩︎
2. *I had to look it up, it means rising from the sea. ↩︎
3. If you want to look at the downloadable, non extensible feedback form it’s here. The downloadable form might still be useful to look at the questions and prepare the answers in advance ↩︎