Cambridge Approaches

In addition to the financial black hole that is HS2, Jeremy Hunt mentioned two other rail schemes in his autumn budget. EWR and Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR). In this post I want to make a few comparisons between these schemes to see what it tells us about EWR.

Passenger numbers for these intercity railways will be driven by the size of the cities that they serve. Let’s compare the 6 largest cities on the NPR (Leeds, Sheffield, Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle and Hull) with the 6 largest on the EWR (MK, Bedford, Oxford, Cambridge, Bletchley). Population figures are taken where possible from the 2021 census.

I draw two conclusions from this a) passenger demand on EWR will be around three times lower than on NPR b) spending per head of population is three times higher for EWR than for NPR. We should also consider how well developed the public transport is around these stations. I suspect NPR wins there as well because the NPR cities are better developed with regard to local transport, and the railway has been there a long time.

I don’t recall any specific Conservative manifesto commitment to restore EWR in 2019, but there was something about levelling up in the north of England, wasn’t there? And no, I don’t believe in Cambridge exceptionalism despite it being my hometown.

If these schemes were going to be privately financed or profitable, that would be one thing, but their capital costs are huge, and they will suffer a loss for every year that they operate. All funded by the taxpayer or national debt.

The government should publish a business case for EWR and allow public scrutiny. Currently it looks like a few mandarins in the treasury believing vague promises in smoke filled rooms about wider benefits and economic growth. We have no objective or publicly understood measure to compare one rail scheme with another and the result will be be that truly awful white elephants get funded.

The Office of Road and Rail recently published their UK Rail finances for the year to 2022. They are still awful.

Year to March	Costs	Income: Passenger Fares	Income: Government Subsidy	Income: Other
2020	20.2	11.6	6.5	2.0
2021	21.0	2.5	16.9	1.3
2022	22.8	6.5	13.3	1.5

The 2022 figures were clearly still affected by COVID 19 even though the final lockdowns started to be lifted at the start of the period on the 29^th of March 2021. It’s also worth noting that the rail subsidy had been running at above £5Bn for 15 years before the year to March 2020.

The average UK railway ran at a 33% loss before COVID, it’s 58% with the latest figures and despite significant increases in rail fares this does not seem to be improving. EWR will be a below average railway. Passenger numbers will be lower than average because of the small cities which it connects. It also needs to recoup the capital costs.

There is very little hard evidence that EWR will trigger wider benefits and economic growth. Surely that would require people to be using it in significant numbers. Please, EWRCo., show us the passenger forecasts and their justification. Also tell us why we need an intercity railway to solve local commute problems that are being solved more cheaply and flexibly with busways. How about some light rail? We could have funded that with just the design costs of CS3.

Remember that EWR was part of the OxCam Arc. There was a big consultation about the spatial plan for the OxCam Arc in 2021.  That’s important because it could help the first and last mile problem from hitting EWR passenger numbers more than it needs to. After a recent FOI request, the government (DLUHC) refused to publish the results of the consultation, because they are planning to do so at some unspecified time in the future. Without a spatial plan the first and last mile issue will kill the EWR passenger demand. Beth West of EWRCo. said recently that a spatial plan would be good, but they could be waiting a long time for that and we should just do the best we can without it. Is that an acceptable approach to spending billions of taxpayers’ money? (No).

We have asked EWRCo. about first and last mile repeatedly. EWR Co.’s Will Gallagher said he was talking to England’s Economic Heartland about it. At their recent EEH conference, EEH’s Naomi Green said that first and last mile was a hard problem and that perhaps the private sector could do something about it. Good grief.

Meanwhile it has been announced that EWR have appointed a consortium of WSP and Mott Macdonald to be their technical partners. If this is the main development partner contract, then information on the Department for Transport website indicates that the contract value is £676.5million. They seem to be full steam ahead on their part of the “decide, announce, defend” path. Don’t worry about the local people. Or logic for that matter.

Let’s have another look at those capital costs.

Capital Costs

You may have noticed that railway construction contracts tend to increase in cost over time. This is not all down to bad estimation. Part of it is around the careful control of project scope. The idea is to get to the smallest cost possible, get it signed off and then add to it after that.

Consider the following for EWR:

Electrification is excluded the current cost estimates based on a continually changing story about hydrogen trains or more recently battery-operated trains, but full electrification is not excluded as a possibility. Importantly, there is no line item in the capital budget for any means of getting to an operationally net zero railway. The cost of electrification of the comparable Transpennine Rail Upgrade (TRU) grew from £2.9bn to £11bn billion. Defenders of rail say there were a lot of tunnels on the TRU. I say let’s see a conservative estimate included in the costs.

Freight. The current commitment is to maintain the existing freight traffic. That’s a few trains per week on the West Anglia Mainline, perhaps something on the Midlands Mainline through Bedford, but certainly nothing like the 50 freight trains per day that Network Rail would like to see running on the whole EWR. That means freight loops and a full freight specification for the railway. EWR Co.’s Beth West says discussions continue about that. And I predict nothing will be put in the cost estimates until it is signed off. Maybe you are getting the pattern now?

Mitigations. EWR Co. have been talking about reducing the height of viaducts and embankments, going under roads instead of over them. I asked them for a cost estimate of all these mitigations. They don’t have an estimate. So, guess what? There is nothing in the capital budget for it. Will mitigations get implemented. Who knows?

Grade Separated Junction at Great Shelford. This is the busiest point on the currently proposed EWR route into Cambridge. There is traffic from King’s Cross, Liverpool Street, a bit of freight and EWR. There is no station to hold trains to make the timing fit. The Department for Transport revealed an additional £499.6m cost for 4-tracking into Cambridge even though the staff at the recent Haslingfield drop in event said they did not know about it. After a few months EWRCo. did respond to a question which confirmed that this huge sum of money did not include the Grade Separated Junction. Something else to look forwards to in future estimates then.

Mick Lynch of the RMT

I am going to say something about the recent rail strikes, just because they illustrate how far from economic reality the UK rail system really is. Mick Lynch argued today that pay rises for train drivers (who currently get paid £60,000 a year or more) would not contribute to inflation. That’s because they would not necessarily be passed on to passenger fares. He suggests that the money could be taken from the guaranteed profits of the private rail operators. There will come a point where these rail operators will hand back to their franchises to the government. This has already happened. Meanwhile the government can complain about how the rail industry needs to become more efficient. No one takes responsibility for the broken system that we have, and yet the government wants to add more railways which will perform even worse than the existing ones. And to be fair, in the main, the opposition parties seem to support them.

But Aren’t Railways Green?

You might be thinking that we should build railways anyway because they are greener than all those fossil-fuelled cars.  Consider the following:

By the time EWR CS3 starts operation in the 2030s, the only available new cars to buy will be electric and the costs will come down. Yes, there are enough raw materials to make the batteries (consider Sulphur and Sodium batteries).

The CO₂ emissions from the construction of the railway will be significant and operationally, trains running at less than capacity are not efficient. We only see a benefit if people prefer to give up their cars and take the train. Perhaps people should be forced to do this? That depends how authoritarian you feel the government should be.

The economic growth used to justify the railway comes with large scale housing development on green field sites near new stations. That creates huge amounts of CO₂.

This post publishes an open letter from Great Shelford resident Annabel Sykes to Anthony Browne MP and sets out her thinking on why the EWR Bedford to Cambridge Section should be dropped.

10 November 2022 

Dear Anthony 

I am writing not only in my local capacity, but also as a concerned taxpayer. 

In my opinion, East West Rail (“EWR”) central section is, at best and subject to some critical preconditions (explained in the next paragraph), a possible nice-to-have.  By contrast, some things are essential, most relevantly a coherent solution to Cambridgeshire’s severe public transport issues (including the building of Cambridge South station).   

EWR central section will not make a meaningful difference to  this essential objective, for the reasons explained at 1 below, and for a minimum of around £5 billion^[1] of taxpayer’s money (2021 figures, so before the current high level of building inflation), does not represent any kind of value.  I also note that this is before any meaningful costs for extending EWR beyond Cambridge to the east are available. It would, in my view, be  very rash to make a decision to proceed with the central section of EWR (on any route whatsoever) without first having (a) a clear statement of its purpose (1(g) below), (b) a route which has been determined based on that purpose, (c) a public review of a business case and costs which are based on that purpose and (d) a proper costs estimate for the eastern section, again whatever route it follows (see 1(f) below for why). 

The Conservative Party’s 2019 Manifesto contains no express commitment to EWR.  The closest it gets is “We will also invest in improving train lines to…. East Anglia”.  The building of Cambridge South station and the Ely capacity enhancements, together with signalling upgrades and frequency increases on lines that can’t currently be used to get to jobs (see 1 and 3 below) could meet this commitment. 

1.  The Lack of Business Case for EWR Central Section

I should make clear that I am not an enemy of rail.  I live within hearing distance of the West Anglia Mainline (“WAML”) (inside the house, including at night) and I use the train whenever I reasonably can.  As I am over 60, it is relatively affordable, but both rail travel and station parking are expensive, especially for those between 30 and 60 (who don’t generally benefit from any discount on rail fares).  

I cannot see that EWR’s central section represents value for money or forms part of a coherent transport strategy for Cambridgeshire, for the following reasons:   

(a) Unlike some other places along the proposed EWR route, Cambridge is already very well connected by rail in all directions, including to the East Coast Main Line (“ECML”) (at both Hitchin and Peterborough).  In terms of east-west connection, it will also benefit from the A428 Black Cat to Caxton Gibbet road improvement scheme to which the Government has already committed.  There is a serious question whether it needs a third connection to the ECML.  If it does, the route 

needs very careful thought, having fully identified the link’s purpose or purposes (see (g) below).  This is a contrast with Bedford and points west, which do not currently have a link with ECML and, in general (with the exception of Oxford) don’t have rail links as extensive as Cambridge. 

(b) A draft Strategic Narrative for EWR prepared by Steer for the East West Main Line Partnership (“EWMLP”) suggests that Cambridge (among others) has a lower than average level of commuting into its centre for an economy of its size and importance. Assuming this is correct, it may well have more to do with (i) the positioning of the stations relative to places of employment (something which will be significantly improved with the building of Cambridge South station) and (ii) the timing, frequency and cost of the existing rail services, than to any lack of connection.  For example, I met someone recently who lives in Soham and drives into Cambridge to her place of work because the services from Soham are not frequent enough to allow her to use them to commute.  The previous mayor of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority was fond of pointing out that Manea and March have stations, but they can’t be used to commute regularly to Cambridge because of lack of sufficient services (either quantity or hours).  Wisbech no longer has a station.

(c) In saying this, I do not ignore the very serious public transport problems in much of Cambridgeshire and especially in Cambourne and other new towns.  I am, however,  not convinced that a service which stops at St Neots/Tempsford and Cambourne and swings round to the new Cambridge South station will make much of a dent in this problem.  A holistic approach is needed; the nearly £5 billion estimated cost of the central section of EWR²could potentially provide a far wider-ranging light rail/tram train type network^[2].  This could encompass a reuse for this kind of transport of the line from Great Shelford to Haverhill (something that may be very difficult if EWR central section^[3] goes ahead).  This wider solution has significantly greater potential to ease the congestion problems facing Cambridge and CBC than the EWR central section does.  Greater Cambridge needs transport solutions, not an aspirational growth accelerator (see (j) below). 

(d) The benefits EWRCo says it will provide are access to a wider workforce, increased availability of offices/wet labs, access to affordable homes and levelling.  These seem to me significantly more likely to come to Cambridge from the north and east than from the west.  As regards:  

i)        workforce – I have attached a diagram taken from the CBC Transport Needs Review which shows the origins of staff working at CBC (overwhelmingly hospital staff) by postcode, based on 2011 census data.   This suggests that some staff do, or did, travel in from the west (including Bedford) despite the lack of a railway connection and that the number of staff travelling from areas a roughly comparable distance away but with existing railway connections (Hitchin/Letchworth and Stansted/ Bishop’s Stortford) was not significantly greater.  The diagram shows a notable gap to the north west, but this may well have more 

2 See footnote 1 for source

to do with the fact that CBC hospitals were competing for staff with Hinchingbrooke and, at that time, Papworth Hospitals which were located in that area, than with the lack of a rail link.  More recent information suggests that a percentage of CBC hospital staff do now come from the Papworth and Huntingdon areas (this may well, in large measure reflect the opening of Royal Papworth at CBC).  I have also attached page 7 of the Greater Cambridge Housing Strategy 2019 – 2023, which does not suggest there is a particular issue for EWR’s currently proposed route to solve;

ii)         housing affordability – please see the attached map, which speaks for itself; 

iii)      levelling up – I have attached a diagram from the Government’s White Paper on Levelling Up published earlier this year.  On the whole, the left behind regions are north and  east (rather than west) of Cambridge. 

I am afraid EWRCo’s arguments do not convince me, and they should not convince you, that 

EWR’s central section has a business case.  They also did not convince the former Secretary of 

State for Transport, Grant Shapps, who made clear in the summer (in an interview with LBC on 11 July) that he would cut the second and third tranches of EWR thus saving £3 to 5 billion straight away.   Richard Fuller (MP for North East Bedfordshire) wrote to the then Secretary of State for Transport on 14 October 2022 asking for a full public review of the business case before any decision is made on EWR’s connection stage 2 and the central section.  He has also said that he is formally opposed to EWR^[4].

(e) EWR’s central section is new railway.  However good EWR Co may have been at delivering the project on time and on budget so far (as they claim), they have essentially been upgrading existing railway.  The travails of HS2 show that new railway is much, much harder and that costs and timing can easily overrun by very significant amounts.  I also note that the Cabinet Office’s Infrastructure and Project’s Authority has given EWR stage 2 and the central section a “red” rating (i.e. it does not believe the scheme can meet its objectives on time and within budget unless risks are addressed).   

(f) It is quite clear that Network Rail and others think that the full benefits of EWR will not be realised unless it continues further east^[5].  Steer, for EWMLP, has been working on a pre-Strategic Outline Business Case for the eastern section for some time.  Network Rail’s recent East West Main Line Strategic Statement is clear-eyed on the many difficulties of upgrading the mooted route (being the line to Newmarket) save that it doesn’t mention the large number of level crossings^[6].   Further, the appropriate route beyond Cambridge will depend on the answer to (g). For example, a more regular light rail or tram train solution may well be a preferable one for the Newmarket line if it is to remain a passenger-focussed service. 

(g) It is still not clear what EWR is for^[7].   Some still think it is a high-ish speed Oxford to Cambridge link, some that it is a commuter railway.  At a recent Bidwell’s conference, Will Gallagher of 

EWRCo conceded that it was about “place-making”.  I understand this to mean (among other things) that it is a commuter railway.  This has a major impact on the business case, as does the question of whether freight will be important to it. Historically, freight was important to the Varsity Line.  If freight is important again, and Network Rail is clear that it potentially is^[8], the currently proposed southern approach is highly unsuitable as it would run through significant residential areas of Cambridge, close to several large educational establishments and ironically (bearing in mind that almost all freight is diesel) past one of the country’s leading heart and lung hospitals. There are also some very considerable issues with the Newmarket line, including the narrow radius chord at Coldham’s junction. From this perspective, it is worth noting that EWR Co itself appears recently to have pivoted quietly towards freight^[9]  and has made clear it expects to have an 18 hour operational window for freight services. 

(h) The central section (and indeed the remainder of EWR) will not join together large cities or towns. Cambridge, as we know, is a small city and Bedford borough is roughly 170,000.  The two proposed stopping points between (Tempsford/St Neot’s) and Cambourne are growing, but are  not predicted to become large.  This is of obvious economic significance and, unless there are other reasons to run heavy rail (see (g)) or it joins more communities, EWR feels like a sledgehammer to crack a nut.  This is especially given its potentially damaging impact on South Cambridgeshire villages, which will see no benefit from it, and on farming and food security^[10].  It also assumes that people will use EWR.  EWRCo have carried out a limited, carefully phrased survey which is on their website to bolster their position (see attached screen shot, which does not mention rail).  This contrasts with your own survey with a far greater number of respondents, which suggests that few residents in your constituency will use EWR regularly^[11].   The radical bus network and sustainable travel zone proposals in the recent “Making Connections” consultation by the Greater Cambridge Partnership are relevant too.  EWR will not be able to compete on price with these.  

(i) EWMLP’s Building Better Connections the business imperative for East West Rail (“Building Better Connections”) makes some poorly-researched claims about the connectivity EWR will bring^[12].  I was brought up in Hertfordshire so I can predict with some confidence that no-one would, in practice, catch a train from Welwyn Garden City to St Neot’s to take an EWR train west.  They would make the 17 minute drive to St Alban’s station instead. From Stevenage or Hitchin, it will almost certainly be more time efficient to drive to Luton station and use that route to get onto EWR westwards.   

(j) Cambridge appears to be very capable of growing by itself and it was widely acknowledged at a recent Bidwell’s Ox-Cam Arc conference that cities along EWR already are. EWRCo argues that it could super-charge this (the approach appears to be not predict and provide, but the fiscally irresponsible provide and hope).  There is, to my mind, a serious question whether if EWR were to succeed in increasing the growth rate (as it argues), Cambridge would overheat, with affordability concerns simply increasing in a vicious spiral.  There are, as you already know, 

significant issues with water and energy supplies in the Greater Cambridge area and deleterious impacts on the region’s precious chalk streams. 

(k) Cambridge South station is an essential addition to Cambridge’s rail provision and should be transformational for CBC, but it is a separate project from EWR and does not need EWR to succeed.  

 An Oxford to Cambridge railway line has nostalgic appeal and makes for good branding, but does it have a business case?  As regards the central section, I remain to be convinced on this and, if there is a business case, of the route that best serves its purpose, once that purpose has been clearly identified.   

2.  Community Liaison

EWRCo is not a transparent organization, both its consultations have been of a poor standard and it does not seem to enjoy talking to communities potentially impacted by the central section or see any need to keep them up-to-date in an effective way. 

The recent EWR organised Haslingfield drop-in is a case in point:   (a) I took a copy of the August FOI reply with me and asked the EWR representatives for programme and business case about its line “Cambridge Station and West Anglia Main Line £499,600,000”.  Each of them said they did not recognise it and had no idea what it related to^[13].  I found this quite astonishing.  The business case person also said that the DfT “owns” the business case; 

(b) I asked why no drop-in event had been held in Great Shelford (every single proposal EWRCo has ever made runs through Great Shelford).   The answer was predictable warble.  The true answer is more likely that EWR Co assumes that holding something in central Cambridge is good enough, which it isn’t.  It simply demonstrates a complete misunderstanding of the relationship between Cambridge and the communities in its southern necklace villages. 

The local representative groups recently established by EWRCo are another case in point.  EWRCo is either unwilling or unable to engage constructively with communities’ legitimate questions.  These meetings appear to be a “tick box” exercise.  In addition, the sparse attendance by councillors representing Cambridge City is interesting.  Two meetings were held for the city only group.  The first was attended by one councillor and the second was cancelled when no-one turned up^[14].  The only conclusion I can draw from this is that the city is not very interested in EWR. 

Finally, Hannah Staunton (EWRCo’s Head of Communications) gave a notably unsatisfactory interview on Radio Bedfordshire on 18 October.  This is her answer to a question regarding when residents in limbo in Bedford will find out if their houses will be demolished. After expressions of sympathy, she said  “It has taken longer than we’d hoped…I don’t have a date for you at the moment, I am afraid.  We are still working on the feedback we received and we are looking at a number of other things as well… We are really are trying to make sure we are creating the best possible design that we can.. it almost goes without saying there are some decisions in central government that take a little bit longer to get through than we were hoping…..At the moment, it 

would be irresponsible of me to put a date out there”.    As you know, there are many people in South Cambridgeshire in a similar position of uncertainty as regards their homes, gardens or farms to those in Bedford.  Sustained pressure on EWRCo is required. 

3.    Improving Train Lines to East Anglia 

(a) I live in one of the better connected villages in South Cambridgeshire.  Not only is it an easy cycle into Cambridge, but it has a train station and a bus service (albeit subject to cancellations).  I nevertheless find myself driving more than I would like to.  For example, I would love to catch the train to Peterborough and Stansted Airport, but neither journey from Shelford is sufficiently regular or competes adequately with driving.  Even the journey to the airport, which is on WAML, involves a change if one starts at Shelford. 

(b) There are three problematic to severely problematic level crossings in South Cambridgeshire – one at Foxton and two in Great Shelford.  They are serious pinch points and need to be replaced with fit-for-purpose crossings of the railway line. 

(c) As noted above, there are a number of places which have stations, but very limited service.  For example, Bury St Edmunds has a population of over 40,000 and has good road, but astonishingly poor rail, connections, including with Cambridge.  Wisbech has no rail connections with Cambridge or anywhere else. 

(d) Network Rail’s Ely area capacity enhancement proposals would significantly improve connectivity and reliability for passenger services and meet the demand for more rail freight to and from Felixstowe.  They were not included in the Growth Plan and were, at minimum, rumoured to have been rejected by the Department of Transport in the summer, but are significantly cheaper and with more obvious benefit to parts of Cambridgeshire than EWR.  

(e) A comprehensive, integrated public transport system is what Cambridgeshire needs.  EWRCo’s lack of transparency and reluctance to liaise with anyone indicates that it expects everyone else to work around it and does not suggest it is approaching its mission with the open mind needed to make it a success.  There is a severe risk it will take a huge chunk of the transport budget Cambridgeshire might reasonably expect and make little, if any, real improvement to the trainlines to East Anglia.  

Cutting EWR’s central section is an easy win in these difficult financial times and I urge the Government not to hesitate.   

Yours sincerely 

Annabel Sykes 

---

^[1] See attached reply of 17 August to a freedom of information request by Mohammad Attar (“August FOI reply”)

^[2] An initiative which would be consistent with the Liberal Democrat 2019 Manifesto and was recently mentioned by Lucy Nethsingha – https://www.cambridgeindependent.co.uk/news/cambridge-might-needlight-rail-after-all-says-county-counc-9277771/

^[3] Revival of the link to Haverhill is supported by you, Lucy Frazer KC MP and Matt Hancock MP.  Cambridge Connect has been working with RailFuture East Anglia and others on developing tram train proposals, which can also run on existing heavy rail lines and thus avoid some of the problems identified for CSET2 (the Greater Cambridge Partnership’s partial solution for those currently commuting along the A1307) in adopting a rail route.  Reviving the Haverhill line would also give Sawston (a large village with a population of about 7,000) the station it wants and, unlike CSET2, serve the new Cambridge City football ground at Sawston.   

^[4] Bedford Independent 24 August 2022

^[5] See, for example, Network Rail’s East West Main Line Strategic Statement and EWMLP’s Building Better Connections

^[6] See its page 61

^[7] The Sponsor’s Requirements and Programme Wide Output Specification (see the relevant appendices of the Technical Report published by EWRCo as part of its 2021 consultation) lack clarity on this all important question.  They also assume that EWR must travel to Cambridge station.  Why?  There are already six trains an hour in each direction through Cambridge

^[8] See page 61 of Network Rail’s East West Main Line Strategic Statement

^[9] See this blog – https://eastwestrail.co.uk/latest–news/project–updates/our–approach–to–freight–joannaanswers–your–questions

^[10] See https://cambridgeapproaches.org/ewr–impact–on–farming–and–uk–food–security/  

^[11] https://www.anthonybrowne.org/news/anthony–welcomes–residents–views–east–west–rail

^[12] The example towns  mentioned in the next sentence already have direct rail connections with Cambridge

^[13] My purpose was to find out whether this line item assumed grade-separation at Shepreth Branch Junction, which would be potentially devastating for Great Shelford and parts of Trumpington.  I am still in the dark on the answer to this question   

^[14] The first meeting of the Cambridge City and Surrounding Areas Group was attended by some city councillors who appeared more interested in drowning out the inconvenient concerns of the southern villages than representing their electorate, the second of that group by very few

In a recent meeting with our local MP, Anthony Browne we were left with the impression that the government of Boris Johnson was heading for cancellation of EWR CS3. But now there is a new government with a completely new set of ministers – what will they make of it?

EWR: Competition with Road

Here’s the thing. If you have a car and you want to get from Bedford to Cambridge would an East West Rail link get you out of your car and onto the train? Grant Shapps said recently in relation to the A428 improvements “only a small proportion of the proposed development’s traffic would reassign to the East West Rail scheme”. 

Mr Shapps is sceptical. Let me help you decide.

Would it be quicker? NO (see here)

Would it be cheaper? NO (see here)

Would it be more environmentally friendly? NO see below and here.

Have they published a business case? NO (but we have asked)

Have they published a full forecast of passenger numbers? NO (but only 18,000/year from Oxford to Cambridge/less than one per train, see §4.11 on this link).

The recent output from the EWRMLP here (1)  and here (2) do not address any of these issues. But they do contain some wonderful word salad. Here is my favourite piece from (1)

“With two thirds of the most powerful businesses of the future yet to be created, we need to ensure the UK is ready to create and scale the fast growth businesses of the future.”

Gosh, that’s deep. I mean how long a future does mankind have?

Steer, the authors of (2) have completely avoided the question of competition with road including time spent waiting for the next train and the first and last mile. That’s odd since it was the main point of the Network Rail EWR Strategic Statement published in March 2022. This illustrates the problem of paying consultants to provide evidence for decisions when you have already made up your mind. Not a great use of our public money that.

And so the Boondoggle that is EWR Co. rolls on.

EWR: The Growth Catalyst

In a recent article in the Cambridge Independent, EWRCo. explained that their railway will actually be a catalyst for economic growth. They obliquely refer to the OxCam Arc’s £163 billion transformational scenario contained in the NIC Partnering for Prosperity report. You know, the one with the million new houses by 2050? It has to be an oblique reference because Michael Gove cancelled the Arc back in February. However, popular though it wasn’t, rumours are now floating about that “the Arc will return” see for example here.

I find it hard to picture what an increase of £163billion in gross value added (GVA) looks like. For reference, GVA of Cambridge Biomedical Campus (CBC) is around £1billion. I know what that looks like and can imagine the houses of the 20 thousand or so people who work there. The construction of 163 of those would be a tsunami of concrete across the area between Oxford and Cambridge (hence the green credentials of a railway who’s business case depends on that are suspect). No doubt EWRCo. would say that is out of scope for them. Perhaps an expert from Friends of the Cam could tell us what 163 CBCs would do to the river Cam.

A key point from the NIC report is that the “agglomeration factor” for the sprawling Arc is low compared with say, a city. That means the Arc, if constructed, would in the main just be moving around two million people from one place to another without really adding value. It would however emit a lot of CO₂ in the process. See Prof. Roger’s more detailed explanation of this here. It would also be good for the construction industry and those that deal in property.

Whatever you feel about the OxCam Arc there is still the question of the mechanism by which completing the EWR, on its own, will trigger such massive growth over the period between now and 2050 (about 80% in the OxCam Arc compared with 16% nationally). “Partnering for Prosperity” proposed a lot more than just building the railway – there would be spatial framework, development corporations, expressway, local transport schemes etc. Not just a railway.

What we see from proponents of the railway are interviews with a few no doubt heavily prompted business leaders supporting EWR. First among these is AstraZeneca. AZ have built a large lab at the CBC and really just need the Cambridge South station to be built in order to get people to work. They are already committed to the area. The question for AZ and any of these businesses or potential investors is this. What more would you commit to invest in the area if EWR was built? So far, I have seen zero evidence of this linkage. Does infrastructure of marginal use attract investment? Even if it does, would we not be better finding some really useful infrastructure to build?

Which brings us back to the fundamental point. If EWR does not attract many passengers, why will it attract investment to the region?

Intercity vs Local Commute

EWR Co. have said themselves that most of the market for their railway will be from people commuting to the nearest city. That’s why we see local politicians trying to solve that problem with busses and local light rail schemes. They at least have an idea of the problem that needs to be solved. But even though EWR Co. call their railway a commuter line, it’s actually a fast, inter-city link but without any large cities on the route. 

Costs (they keep going up)

The Department for Transport recently responded to a freedom of information request and gave some new capital cost information for the currently favoured route into Cambridge (Amazing, I know). Aside from inflation increases there is a new line item of £499.6million for 4-tracking from Great Shelford into Cambridge station taking the total capital cost to just under £4.3 billion. In the previous round of costings, it seems that they assumed the Cambridge South station project would pay for that work.

Ouch. You could build a medium sized hospital for £500 million.

Then there is the cost of mitigating the Great Wall. If they do something how much more will that cost?

Vanity Project

Well that’s a tour of some of the issues with EWR CS3. Unless they come up with some better answers / evidence it really ought to be consigned to the dustbin.

However, sometimes projects go ahead even though they don’t make a lot of sense. Perhaps so that our new leader can say that she has delivered. I hope she is more thoughtful than that.

*substantially the same letter also sent to other local political signatories of the letter to Rishi Sunak attached to the end of this post.

Dear Ms Smith

I have recently read the letters you have signed to Grant Shapps and to Rishi Sunak requesting funding of the East West Railway in full. I expect they will be interpreted as on behalf of the district. I guess your reason for doing so was a belief that EWR will be a good thing.

Everyone collects facts that fit their beliefs (confirmation bias). Since we have opposite views on East West Rail I thought you might be interested in some of the reasons why I think it should not go ahead.

ORR UK Rail Finances

These one page Office of Road and Rail reports summarise the finances for the whole rail network every financial year. Financial year 19-20 was pre-pandemic and showed spending of £20.1 billion funded by £11.6 billion from passenger fares, £6.5 billion from the taxpayer and everything else (which includes freight access fees) £2.0 billion. The following year passenger fares collapsed and the taxpayer filled the gap with a £16.9 billion subsidy. 

It’s clear from this that the average railway loses money, however, the EWR is not an average railway. There are no large cities along its route which means lower than average passenger numbers. Compare Cambridge to London with Cambridge to Oxford: a similar distance but London will get much more traffic.

Competition with Road

The EWR is also quite a short railway. Trains go faster than cars and railways therefore become more competitive over longer distances. Network Rail’s analysis of the East West Railway demonstrates that it will struggle to compete with road even with no allowance for the first and last mile. I have summarized their numbers here. EWR will not facilitate longer rail journeys because of the interchange time penalties. For example, Norwich to Cardiff rail journeys will continue to go via London, passengers will not change at Cambridge and Oxford. I will not drive to Cambourne get the EWR to Cambridge and then get a London train. I will just drive to Royston.

Car ownership in 2020 in the East of England region stood at 1.36 cars per household and had risen over then previous 10 years. I suspect it is higher around Cambridge. Empirically, many of these cars sit in front of the house during the week and people work from home. Rail is also competing with Zoom.

Once the Black Cat to Caxton Gibbet A428 improvement scheme is completed using Network Rail and National Highway figures for journey times between Bedford and Cambridge, it will only be two minutes faster by EWR than peak road. This means that people that can afford to live within 1-2 minutes of Cambridge station will see a small benefit if they happen to want to go to Bedford station. Most real Cambridge to Bedford journeys will remain quicker by car even in peak times. EWRCo. cherry pick longer peak road journey times, but overall EWR has little or no advantage over road for the overwhelming majority of East West journey pairs.

Climate Change Impact

Diesel powered trains emit about 5 times less CO₂ per passenger or freight kilometre than cars and lorries. Rail electrification would remove the last 20%. However, this is a 100-year railway and cars are rapidly decarbonising. I have an electric car and charge it from electricity that the supplier already assures me is from renewable sources. EWR Co. can find ways to make their railway zero carbon operationally as well.

The climate change comparison is more about CO₂ from construction rather than operation. Carbon neutral electric vehicles are already being produced for example by Volkswagen.

The carbon emissions from the construction of the East West Railway will be substantial. Much of the estimated cost is from the embankments and concrete viaducts. Some local civil engineers estimate that the section between Cambourne North and Hauxton Junction would require 866,000 lorry movements to construct.

The railway makes more sense as set out in “Partnering for Prosperity”, if indeed there were four development corporations between Cambridge and Bedford, the new towns built on green field sites could be designed for easy access to the EWR station. But think about the CO₂ emissions from the construction of these new towns and the loss of prime agricultural land.

Passenger Fares

The marginal cost of my Electric Vehicle is 7 pence per mile. This compares with peak rail fares on the busy Thameslink line of 55 pence per mile, plus £12.50 to park my car at Cambridge Station. Since I already have a car for other reasons, it would not make financial sense to use the EWR. EWR fares should be higher than Thameslink reflecting the higher costs and lower number of passengers.

Construction Cost

A recent article in the New Civil Engineer was based on an interview with the construction director at the rail construction company Ferrovial. Ferrovial have worked on HS2 and similar high-speed rail projects in Europe. They reported that average achieved construction cost across 15 high speed rail projects in Europe was £34million per km. HS2 was estimated to be £100 million per km, but they actually achieved £200 million per km. Yes, six times as much.

In today’s prices the estimated cost of the Bedford to Cambridge section of the EWR is £87million per km.  One suspects the achieved cost will be higher. For reference, Google tells me UK motorways are around £30million per km in 2011 prices so maybe nearer £40million today.

Most UK railways were built long ago, a proper accounting of the business case for EWR must allow for the construction cost.

East West Rail and Levelling Up

The OxCam Arc was pushed aside by the levelling up White Paper in February. It is hard to argue that connecting Oxford to Cambridge achieves levelling up. A trickle-down effect e.g. through Astra Zeneca is a familiar type of argument for this along with Cambridge exceptionalism to foreign investors. These are the sort of arguments that have led to the need for levelling up in the first place. See, for example, Bob Kerslake’s report from the 2070 commission

The letter you signed to Rishi Sunak talks about the connection to the East Coast Mainline at St. Neots and how this will somehow level up the North East of England. Network Rail’s EWML Strategic Statement talks about this ECML connection on p.59

“It is unlikely that ECML fast-line services could call at any new station without unacceptable detriment to journey times or capacity.”

They don’t want to compromise the ECML advantage over road.

Value for Money

I care about value for money from public spending on EWR and so did the 2019 Lib Dem Manifesto.

The real issue is whether unqualified support for EWR will lead to the best use of public money at the moment. This morning, Money Saving Expert Martin Lewis was predicting that a 65% increase in home fuel bills will land around the time that the new Prime Minister arrives on Sept 5th – this would make the home fuel bill alone around one third of the state pension. The Bank of England are talking about more rate rises which will lead to higher mortgages rates. Fuel prices are rising. The NHS needs more money.

I can see a benefit for East West Rail to the following people

–       Commuters to the Biomedical Campus from Bedford and St. Neots – how many will there be that really come in from that direction?  We need to know.

–       People who can afford to live within a minute or two of Cambridge station 

–       Property developers/Investors from land value increase

On the other hand, all taxpayers are invited to pay for it. There are infrastructure projects all over the UK, so if we apportion the say £7.5 billion total cost over the current population between Bedford and Cambridge that might generously be 500,000 households. The cost per household would then be £15,000 for something which the vast majority of them would rarely if ever use.

If you sign more letters on behalf of the district demanding full funding of EWR you are not doing so in my name.

Your sincerely

Dr. William Harrold

Haslingfield and Cambridge Approaches