There was a meeting of the Cambridge Approaches oversight group of parish councils on the 11th February 2021. We discussed the concept of sending a joint letter to the rail minister and transport secretary with the same text as the petition. No one spoke against the idea. The letter was subsequently ratified by parish councils and the resulting letter was sent to Chris Heaton-Harris and Grant Shapps on the 23rd February 2021. Click download to see the letter and its signatories from Cambourne town council to Trumpington resident’s association.
If you agree that we need a fair consultation on an approach to Cambridge north please sign the petition.
EWR Co. say there was a full consultation on this in 2019 and remind us that legally they didn’t have to do a consultation at all. The message from EWR Co.analysis of the consultation results is that option E is popular.
Was the 2019 consultation a fair consultation on a northern approach to Cambridge? Well …
parishes north of the A428 were not consulted
the northern approach was presented in the context of (flawed) reasons why it should not be adopted
very few people were aware of the consultation in the option E area and highly affected parishes such as The Shelfords were not consulted.
there were no consultation meetings in the option E area between Cambourne and Gt. Shelford
results on the approach to Cambridge were mixed up with the Cambourne vs Bassingbourn station issue.
We intend to come back to the consultation results and the popularity of Option E in the 2019 consultation in a future post.
The petition calling for a fair consultation has now passed 7000 signatures which is the same as the total number of people that responded to the EWR Co. 2019 consultation with any view.
As the CBRR petition passes 6400, pressure is increasing on EWR Co. to openly review the northern approach to Cambridge. They do seem to be uniting opinion in many parts of South Cambridgeshire that this north south consultation needs to happen. Here is a survey of some recent news on this.
Anthony Browne MP
Anthony Brown MP published this letter to residents on Friday 5th February 2021. Note in particular this paragraph.
“I have heard the arguments in favour of the northern approach option and find them persuasive. I certainly think that it warrants full consideration, and that the public should have a say on this option. I cannot say whether a northern or southern approach will be best for EWR. That is a decision that must be made by EWR depending on the evidence, detailed scoping work and outcome of public consultations. My aim is to ensure that both the northern and southern options are properly considered and consulted on. This will not only ensure that the best decision can be made, but also that the public can have confidence in the process. “
CA are currently working with Anthony Browne’s office on this common objective.
BCN Wildlife Trust
On the 9th February 2021, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire Wildlife Trust (BCN WT) re-affirmed its support for a northern approach to Cambridge here. They are still asking why a Strategic Environmental Assessment has never been performed (beyond the trite and bizarre reason that EWR Co. do not consider themselves under a legal obligation to do so because they have no programme or plan).
The result of this omission is that while the BCN WT, the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England and even Natural England are all indicated in their consultation responses that a northern route would be better for the environment, EWR Co. are asserting with little or no evidence that Option E is better.
Is this a good way to spend £6.5billion of taxpayers money? Cambridge deserves to be treated better than this.
We are rather hoping that when the petition is circulated to the 34,000 BCN WT members, then some more people will become aware of the issue and sign it.
Cambourne Town Council
At a recent meeting of some northern parishes in Anthony Browne’s constituency, the chairman, Joe O’Dwyer, affirmed his support for an EWR route into Cambridge North. He also reported that the new Programme Delivery Director at EWR Co. had said “there were no technical or cost reasons not to approach Cambridge from the north”. This is a very sensible statement.
But it is rather in contrast to the now rather discredited rebuttal of the CBRR route in §16 of EWR Co.s Route Option Report. This is the report that talks about trains having to turn around in Cambridge and additional costs. Both claims have been dismissed on this blog and elsewhere more than once and many times to EWR Co. for a long time, but they don’t change the record.
Trouble in Bedford
The good people of Bedford have successfully petitioned their council to debate the route of EWR. Like us they have realised the possibility of freight trains rumbling through central Bedford at night and are not happy at the prospect. Here is a report on the debate held there earlier in the week. They have also noticed that while Option E was the most expensive at the time of the 2019 consultation, it became the second cheapest in the 2020 Route Option Report. Maybe they have been reading this post.
A Resident of the Option E area Ponders Grant Shapps’ Announcement.
You may have noticed the press coverage on 23rd January 2021 about the East West MainLine (“EWML”) based on this press release from the Department for Transport (DfT). It’s about funding to complete the renovation of the old line from Bicester to Bletchley in the Western Section of the East West MainLine. You can hear Grant Shapps’ short You Tube video about it here. It clearly does not relate to the substantially new Central Section between Bedford and Cambridge.
The funding commitment for Bicester to Bletchley was announcedin the Chancellor’s Autumn 2020 Spending Review (see page 38). The new information on the 23rd January 2021 is just the actual amount to be spent.
So why is the DfT recycling old news?
The announcement comes at the end this week’s Spotlight East West Main Line 2021 conference which also was set up to promote EWML. The presentations are still available online. So, the DfT press release is clearly part of the choreography.
There were conference presentations on Monday from England’s Economic Heartland and Transport East. When the conference moderator asked them what they saw as the main hurdle for the EWML, they both replied that it was securing funding from HM Treasury. In fact, it emerged that this was one of the main reasons for the conference’s promotion of the EWML scheme this week.
Later in the week, the Rail Minister Chris Heaton-Harris very honestly explained some of the hurdles that he faced in getting more funding from HM Treasury. He said that “49% of DfT funding went toward 2% of the journeys – and that’s rail”. He also said that currently “the Treasury has many calls on its shallow pockets”.
Readers of this blog will know that we are also concerned that the taxpayer really gets value for money from the EWML. This is not unconditional opposition to the scheme, but just a demand that EWR Co. really demonstrates the business case for it and shows that they have optimised the route around the constraints produced by that business case. For example, if it supports freight, then we need to consider the impact on communities, if it’s about commuting to the nearest city, make sure this is maximized, if it’s about the fastest end-to-end transit, draw a straight line from Oxford to Cambridge.
If you divide the total cost of the Central Section by the population between Bedford and Cambridge in 2019 prices it comes out at around £9,000 per household. We are all big stakeholders in this. So, how is the business case looking for the Central Section?
It emerged in the conference that the EWR Consortium do not have a published business case for the EWML. Perhaps EWR Co. / DfT have one?
CA have to report that we have not seen any of the following from EWR Co.:
a housing plan associated with the route
an environmental impact assessment across route options
a plan to co-ordinate with other transport schemes around Cambridge
credible explanations of Benefit to Cost Ratio calculations across options
proper analysis of a Northern Approach to Cambridge
honest impact assessment of the forecast long term 30% drop in passenger numbers post-Covid announced at the conference.
The Rail Freight Group did present interesting information at the conference to show how the freight traffic demand has already bounced back since the start of the pandemic. See Figure 1.
Of course, while this is good news for the freight industry, those poor people to trying to make a passenger rail business case are not in such a strong position.
One thing we did think was settled was that the Central Section would be freight capable. This was because of the “substantive answer” to an earlier question from CA to EWR Co.. However, it became clear that Maggie Simpson from the Rail Freight Group speaking at this week’s conference was working under that assumption that the Central Section would not support freight. Also Kerry Allen, a planner from Suffolk County Council said that freight plans were at an early stage.
Chris Heaton-Harris then “clarified” the situation by saying that it was “up for grabs” whether the Central Section would be freight capable.
As regards passenger usage, Maria Cliff, EWR Co. Head of Operations explained that they had developed “personas” for the types of rail passenger that they would serve.
Figure 2 EWR Co. Customer Personas
Really good to see that EWR Co. are starting to get to grips with who will actuallyuse the railway, this should have been published years ago. Notice the lack of the “Rapid Roy” persona who really needs a regular 90-minute transit from Oxford to Cambridge or indeed “Freight Operator Freddie”. It does make sense that the everyday users are commuters and schoolchildren, going to their nearest city. We strongly agree about school children so many 6thformers from around the county go to school in Cambridge.We believe that with the addition of a Northstowe station, the northern approach to Cambridge is likely to serve commuters better than Option E as clearly explained by CBRR’s Sebastian Kindersley here.
There are definitely benefits from building the Central Section but, given the amounts of money involved and the uncertainties around the business case, is EWR Co.’s plan imminently to launch a consultation on detailed route alignments in the option E area really sensible? If you are not sure please signthis petition.
CA’s Steve Edmondson wrote this letter published in the Cambridge Independent in December 2020. The text is copied below.
The new East-West Rail Link between Oxford and Ipswich is being planned to pass through Cambridge.
Whilst the extra trains, about 6 per hour, will offer better choice for passengers, the 20 or so freight trains are less welcome.
These freight trains originate at the port of Felixstowe which is expanding steadily. They currently follow two routes, either via Ely and Peterborough to the Midlands and north or via Chelmsford and north London to the West and South of England. Both routes are congested and the coming East-West rail link will offer a convenient third option.
The proposed route approaches Cambridge from the south and leaves via the single track line towards Newmarket via the sharp curve at Coldham’s common junction.
It is expected that the track will be dualled as far as Fulbourn, through Cherry Hinton so that freight trains can wait for a suitable gap to pass through the congested Cambridge Central station.
The East West Rail link is being built to a standard suitable for freight trains, so we can expect it to be fully used. Indeed all official forecasts show this to be the case.
There has been little sign that the designers and builders of the new railway have considered the alternative route to the north of Cambridge.
This northern approach could offer less disruption from these half-mile long, diesel hauled trains. Even more appropriate would be a full bypass line for freight trains avoiding the need for any to pass through the city.
Steve Edmondson, Cambridge Approaches Action Group, Cantelupe Road, Haslingfield.
One of a Large New Batch of Posters in The Eversdens
In this post we continue the comparison between a southern Option E route and the route proposed by CBRR. In our earlier post we compared route length (as recapped in Figure 1) and capital cost, in this post we focus more on residential and environmental impact.
Figure 1 Diagram of Routes from Cambourne North (A) to Coldham’s Common (B)
As before, in considering a train transiting the Cambridge area from Cambourne to Chippenham junction near Newmarket on the newly rebranded East West Main Line, the route from point A to point B represents a fair comparison between the CBRR and Option E for through routes.
Road Crossings and Impact on Residential Areas
One of EWR Co.’s Environmental Principles is as follows: “Respecting our Neighbours: effectively managing and controlling noise vibration and pollution to avoid affecting your health or quality of life.”
Rather than mitigate after building the railway, it has to be better to avoid the problem in the first place. Let’s have a look at how the CBRR route might help EWR Co. get closer to their objective in that way.
As before, we consider two routes from Cambourne North (A) to Coldham’s Common (B) as shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2 Diagram of Southern Option E and CBRR Routes (N is Northstowe Station)
For comparison purposes, the EWR Option E scenario shown in Figure 2 has been taken as a route from the north of Cambourne, crossing the A428 to join the Option E area between Toft and Comberton and then to the north of Harlton, south of Haslingfield and Harston to then run parallel to the existing King’s Cross line into Cambridge. All existing bridges running parallel to the King’s Cross line and in Cambridge are assumed to require widening as it’s unlikely that there is sufficient capacity as these tracks are already extremely busy. The widening works may be carried out as part of the EWR Co. project or at a later stage by Network Rail: either way the taxpayer will fund the work.
*** Once again, we have to say that this example Southern Option E route shown in Figure 2 in red is not endorsed by CA ***
However, there are many publicly reported survey locations and evidence from local councillors that EWR Co. are looking at it. It is a combination of our previous alternatives 7and 4.
Counting the number of road crossings on new and existing track helps to compare construction costs of two otherwise similar routes. But given the nationally mandated policy of no new level crossings and EWR Co.’s policy of case by case decisions on re-instating access, it is also an indication of the level of disruption that will be caused by the new railway. If access is restored, we would have to live with the new earthworks and bridges: if it is not restored we would have to live with a divided community.
The results are shown in Table 1 and include existing parts of the track which may need to be widened, either at the time of construction or afterwards and either paid for as part of the EWR Co. project or by Network rail, but either way fundamentally by the taxpayer. Since the existing twin tracks south of Cambridge are currently much busier than the twin tracks north of Cambridge, work to improve tracks to the south is much more likely to be required.
Table 1 shows that the number of both A and B roads crossed is significantly lower for the CBRR route than for the southern Option E route. Because of the lack of track capacity to the south of Cambridge as mentioned above, road bridges over Long Road, Hills Road, Mill Road and Coldham’s Lane in Cambridge may well need to be modified. Given that most of these roads are already congested, such works would be exceptionally disruptive, far more so than bridges further out of Cambridge. Even if these four bridges did not require modifications, the number of Option E road crossings affected would still be greater than the CBRR route.
Ignoring those towns and villages that will have a station in the two scenarios (Cambourne, Northstowe, Cambridge North and Cambridge South), Table 2 shows the number of such settlements closely passed by the railway (within 500m). Again, the CBRR route wins out by a big margin. For the many thousands of people living in those villages, this not a small point as local politicians and EWR Co. should now be fully aware.
Southern Option E
CBRR
Villages within 500m of railway
Caldecote, Toft, Comberton, Little Eversden, Harlton, Haslingfield, Harston, Hauxton, Little Shelford, Great Shelford
Oakington*, Milton, Caldecote**, Dry Drayton
Total
10
4
Table 2 Number of Villages within 500m of EWR CS Cambourne North (A) to Cambridge
*Oakington would benefit from the CBRR Northstowe Station
** Caldecote is less affected by CBRR on the far side of the A428 than our southern Option E example.
Along similar lines, we looked at the built-up areas in Cambridge through which the railway runs. See table 3 below – again much less impact for CBRR.
Length of Railway through built up areas in Cambridge (km)
7
1.5
Table 3 Assessment of the Impact on Residential Cambridge
Lastly, we counted the number of properties within 200m of each railway option from A to B and the results are shown in Table 4 below. These figures are a comparative measure in noise and air pollution between the southern and northern options.
Option E
CBRR
No. of properties within 200m of railway (approx.)
2930
406
Table 4 Number of Properties Impacted Cambourne North (A) to Coldham’s Common (B)
Once again, the CBRR route has far less residential impact both in Cambridge and in the villages. Assuming 2.5 people per property around 6310 more people will be disturbed by a southern route than the CBRR one.
A northern approach also provides opportunities for freight to bypass Cambridge entirely in the future.
Environmental Impact
As we remarked above, EWR Co. want to minimise the environmental impact of their new railway, but they seem to be thinking about mitigating the effect of the railway after construction rather than minimising the damage in the first place. Of course, this EWR Co. approach means they can decide where they want to put the railway unconstrained by environmental considerations and they can then make a show of patching it up afterwards.
EWR Co. have not performed an area wide Strategic Environmental Assessment, we assume for cost reasons. This means that they have to dance around the SEA Directive 2001/42/EC Articles 2 and 3, and it’s adoption in the UK and to be very careful about the terms plan and programme to which the SEA directive applies. Clearly, given that they maintain that they don’t need to perform an SEA, they can’t be doing a plan or programme. Someone needs to tell the EWR Co. HR department not to be recruiting for the Programme Sponsor roles as they don’t have a programme!
However, EWR Co. have made a statement about the relative environmental impact of CBRR vs Option E in §16 of their Option Report as follows:
Extract from EWR Co. Route Option Report January 2020
$§16.32-33 say that they have done an assessment of the CBRR route and found some issues – as usual very little detail or concrete evidence has been provided. §16.34 is the real problem though. Without a quantitative comparison of these CBRR issues with Option E how can they possibly conclude that more effort will be required to mitigate these effects than for Option E?
Wildlife Trust Assessment
Fortunately, the Wildlife Trust have performed a detailed comparison of Option E and the CBRR route and have kindly shared the details of their very thorough analysis with Cambridge Approaches. In this post we just present a summary of their findings between Cambourne and Cambridge.
Option E is a route area whose width varies from a few hundred metres to over 4km. The CBRR route is closer to a route alignment, but allowance has been made for that by widening the corridor around the CBRR route to include a 1km buffer on either side. The Wildlife Trust have listed the sites affected along Option E and the CBRR route. If there is interest, we can seek permission from the Wildlife Trust to share their maps.
We have counted the number of sites between Cambourne and Cambridge and the results are set out in Table 4 as follows:
Sites
Option E
CBRR + 2km Buffer
Wildlife Trust
3
1
SSSI
3
1
County Wildlife
7
4
Scheduled Ancient Monument
10
4
Total
23
10
Table 4 Comparison of Environmental Sites Impacted CBRR vs Option E: Cambourne to Cambridge.
The CBRR route has considerably less impact between Cambourne and Cambridge than Option E. It seems that §16.34 of the option report may be wrong (to say the least).
This letter from the Wildlife Trust presents their interpretation as follows:
“all of the route options into Cambridge South are far worse than the route option into Cambridge North, which has been excluded from the consultation”.
The question is who knows more about the local environment – the Wildlife Trust or an internal study in EWR Co. that does not refer to evidence?
Summary
Between Cambourne and Cambridge we have shown evidence that the CBRR proposal is hugely less damaging to residents both in Cambridge and in the approaches to Cambridge. The same is true of the impact on wildlife sites and ancient monuments as shown by the Wildlife Trust Study.
We have previously demonstrated that the route from the new Cambourne North station to Coldham’s common is shorter (and CBRR have discussed even shorter options with us that preserve the benefits). There are serious unanswered questions about the claimed cost benefits of the Option E route over CBRR to which we can now add the question of additional road crossings.
EWR Co. say they are back-checking the northern route to Cambridge in parallel with a detailed consultation of route alignments in the option E area. Here in CA we do not think this makes sense. If this post castes doubt in your mind that about the right approach to Cambridge and you would like to see a more open consultation including northern approaches, consider signing this petition.
Questions for EWR Co.
Do you agree that avoiding environmental problems in the first place is better than mitigating them afterwards? If so, please can you add this to your environmental principles?
Do you agree that minimising the number of road crossings and the residential areas affected is desirable?
After looking at our analysis and the maps do you agree that the CBRR route is better than Option E in terms of road crossings?
Do you agree that a Cambourne North station (outside the option E area) makes the Northern Approach more attractive e.g. since it becomes unnecessary to cross the A428 expressway east of Cambourne?
Please can you explain your conclusion in §16.34 of the Option report? You have not published a quantitative comparison of the environmental impact of Option E vs CBRR, so the conclusion in §16.34 does not make logical sense. If you do have such a comparison, please can you share it with us?
Do you have evidence to contradict the assessment of the Wildlife Trust that the northern route into Cambridge from Cambourne is far better from a Wildlife and Ancient monument site perspective?
We have now provided new evidence on all 5 of your key assessment criteria that favour the CBRR route over option E. Will you now commit to an open consultation on routes into Cambridge North and South?
Sebastian Kindersley of CBRR makes compelling arguments for a northern approach to Cambridge for the Central Section of the East West Railway.
Sadly, EWR Co. are not currently planning any consultation on approaches to Cambridge north and south. They never have.
However, Anthony Browne reported on Friday’s Shelford meeting that EWR Co. are planning a one year back-check of a northern approach, presumably in parallel with a further consultation about Option E detailed route alignments.
In response to questioning on Friday Mr Browne agreed that this position from EWR Co. does not make sense. He’s right, it’s crazy.
This is an audio recording of the exchange between Anthony Browne, Sebastian Kindersley and a resident of Gt Shelford on the subject of the back-check of the northern approach. We understand that Gt Shelford Parish Council will upload the full recording of the meeting in due course.
Please listen to the presentation and the audio recording and if you also want an open consultation on the right approach to Cambridge do sign the CBRR petition (and get your friends and family to do so as well) – all UK taxpayers will be funding this project after all and we need a say.
In this post we discuss just two of the parameters for a comparison: route length and capital cost. We conclude that the CBRR route is shorter and arguably has a lower capital cost than Option E. We end with some more questions for EWR Co.
This is actually good news. There is potentially a better option available for Cambridge, we just need EWR Co. to look at it again.
The references below set out some of the discussion so far on this topic.
The exact route alignment in the Option E area is still fluid at the moment and in order to make a comparison with the CBRR route, we need to make some assumptions:
There is a station to the north of Cambourne near the junction with the A428, this has widespread support in the area and should facilitate the development of Cambourne, EWR Co. say they are looking at this.
The option E route tries to maximise re-use of existing track and hence joins the Cambridge (or King’s Cross) line just south of Harston.
The EWR Eastern Section connects to Cambridge via the single-track line to Newmarket at Coldhams Common
The routes are shown diagrammatically in figure 1
Figure 1 Diagram of CBRR and Southern Option E Route. Overall distances are measured from point A to point B.
Drawing out both these routes on a detailed map has allowed us to measure the distances shown in Figure 1.
CBRR Route is Shorter than Option E
Figure 2 Track Lengths between points A and B in Figure 1
We can see from the total distances in Figure 2 that the CBRR route is shorter than option E overall by 2.3km. This means that the transit time through Cambridge from west to east (or vice versa will likely be less than for option E.
CBRR reached a similar conclusion comparing the 24km from Cambourne South to Cambridge South with the 23 km from Cambourne North to Cambridge North.
EWR Co. state that improved journey times are an important consideration. CBRR is better than option E in that respect.
Figure 3 Option B and CBRR taken from the Option Report
As pointed out in our earlier post about unexplained cost increases, route B had a much lower capital cost than route E at the time of the consultation, but the situation changed in the option report without much explanation. EWR Co. have so far declined to answer our questions about this huge change.
Route B approaches Bedford from the north while Route E goes through a Bedford South station (Wixams). Their approach to Cambridge is the same. It seems sometime between the consultation and the option E decision, EWR Co. decided that approaching Bedford from the north was cheaper than from the south. We cannot accept this change without further explanation.
EWR Co. claim that CBRR is £0.6Bn more expensive than option B in 2019 prices.
CBRR point out that if you take the cost ratios in the 2019 Technical Report we see that Route E’s capex is 27% (2.8/2.2) higher than Route B. Applying this 27% increase to the £3.9Bn given for option B would lead to an option E capex of £5.0Bn. See Table 1 for the numbers.
It seems that option E is more expensive than CBRR using EWR Co.’s own figures given at the time of the consultation. As pointed out before, the mystery is why the ratio of Option B and E capex costs changed so much in the option report.
EWR Co. go on the say that comparing CBRR with option B is similar to comparing it with option E (option Report §16.30) There is a £200m capex difference even with their own figures in the Option Report and £600m capex difference in the Technical Report. Not small differences.
As previously noted, Route B and Route E are different at the Bedford end of the link. To compare apples with apples we really need to see what is happening between Cambourne and Cambridge. As EWRCo. have indicated, we can do this by comparing CBRR with option B, since they are the same at the Bedford end.
Cambourne to Cambridge Costs
EWR Co.’s Option Report states in $16.29 that the CBRR route will cost £600M more than some unspecified option B route in 2019 prices
Where could this £600M come from?
Figure 2 indicates that there is 3.3km of additional new track with the CBRR route compared with our assumed Option B/E route.
If we take the approximately 50km route from Bedford to Cambridge and divide that into the £3.4Bn estimated capital cost for option B we find a cost of £ 68 Million /km in 2010 prices – this of course includes stations, road and river crossings etc. It’s surprising that 3.3km of track could cost anything like £600M. Even £68M/km x 3.3km = £224.4M. That’s around £259.5M in 2019 prices.
These prices are all very high. In order to reduce noise CBRR proposed that the line be put in a sunken concrete trench. Have EWR Co. made allowance for that in their costings? If so it needs to be there for option E as well. We need an apples for apples comparison.
Part of this may be due to EWR Co. using a Cambourne South station for Option B/E rather than the Cambourne North one assumed here. However, as stated earlier, there is now a consensus that Cambourne North Station is the way to go. If so this analysis needs to be updated by EWR Co.
European Commission Report is the Taxpayer getting Value for Money?
While the Capex/km figures from EWR Co. do seem to be consistent with the much criticised HS2 costings, it is interesting to compare then with a survey of build costs around Europe published by the European Commission in 2017. In Figure 4 of this report we find that their model derived from actual builds gives a construction cost of 7.2MEuros/km for conventional track. Why are the costs here around 10 times as much? Is the taxpayer getting value for money?
The Imaginary Rowing Lake
In section §16.30 of their Option Report EWR Co. make allowance for the railway crossing a new rowing lake north of Cambridge.
However, this rowing lake plan was abandoned and is therefore not an obstacle for the EWR link north of Cambridge. As a matter of fact, given that the news article is dated from the middle of 2018 and the EWR Co. option report is dated January 2020, this allowance was already out of date at the time that the option report was published.
Northstowe Station
The CBRR route has an additional station at Northstowe. This will form part of the additional cost for the CBRR route. We know that the four tracked Cambridge South Station was estimated by Network Rail to cost £200m, but looking at this news article it seems reasonable to assume that a much simpler station at Northstowe should not cost more than £100m. A simple station at Harston was recently estimated to cost £20m, maybe that is a more appropriate figure.
Furthermore, as EWR Co. have said, they have not included any land value increase benefits around stations, (Option Report §15.16) which means that much of the potential benefit of Northstowe station is not included in the assessment. Such benefits can be very significant. The NIC report p.68 talks about a Milton Keynes case study with a tax of £18,500 per home for a new development. That would be £185M for the 10,000 homes mentioned in §16 of the Option Report. According to the same NIC report land values in the Cambridge area are twice what they are in Milton Keynes so this £185M is an under-estimate.
The response to a recent FOI request to EWR Co. about land value increases, stated that they cannot share such information as it is commercially confidential. How can the public assess the value of various routes if even estimates of such information are kept confidential? In particular, as CBRR have pointed out and EWR Co. agree the land value increases for a northern approach to Cambridge will be higher than for the South. The difference is in the amount.
Are Upgrades to Existing Track Included?
Although they all only have two tracks at the moment, due to the high demand for commuter trains to London, the tracks south of Cambridge are much busier than those similar ones to the north. This is indicated in Figure 1 by the thicker lines on tracks south of Cambridge.
Looking at trainline.com for the weekday busy hour timetable from Cambridge to King’s Cross we find 6 trains per hour (tph). We understand from EWR Co. that they want to start with a 4 tph service into Cambridge and to increase it to 6 tph if there is demand. As we have seen there is also a need to run freight trains, but we do not expect these to run during the passenger busy hour and so perhaps they will not affect capacity calculations.
It seems that the traffic into Cambridge from the south with the addition of the EWR link will likely double in terms of trains per hour. This will trigger the need to move from two tracks to four tracks certainly on the line from Gt. Shelford into Cambridge (according to EWR Co.) where there is also the traffic to Liverpool Street and maybe from Harston to Great Shelford as well. There may also be a need to replace level crossings e.g. in Great Shelford with some kind of road bridge.
The proposed upgrades around the Cambridge South station do not cover 4 tracking of much of the line.
So, the cost impact of the option B/E solution should include these improvements to the existing lines. Even if they are paid for by Network Rail rather than EWR Co. both are ultimately funded by the same taxpayers.
Conclusions
The CBRR route will be shorter than Option E.
The CBRR route may well have a lower capex than Option E, especially when the full impact is considered.
The EWR Co. assessment of the CBRR route has some mistakes and several unanswered questions.
Question for EWR Co.
Please can you acknowledge that a northern approach to Cambridge should lead to a shorter route to Cambridge from Cambourne North than a southern route?
Do the costings for option E include any allowance for capacity upgrades to existing track required due to the additional EWR link traffic? If not why not?
Do you agree that lines into the north of Cambridge are less busy than those into the south?
Why did option B capex become higher than option E in the Option Report when this was far from the case in the technical report?
What allowance was made for the rowing lake in the capital cost estimate for the CBRR route given in §16.30? Will you re-issue the comparison with this corrected?
Please can you explain where the additional £600M for CBRR over Option B comes from?
What assumption are you making for the cost of new track for capex/km?
Freight Train Carrying Nuclear Waste Flasks. See UK Nuclear Waste Rail Routes here. Freight will move from North London Line to the EWR Link.
Cambridge Approaches will be presenting a webinar to the Mill Road community in Cambridge (but open to all) on the subject of the likely increase in rail freight traffic through Cambridge as a result of the completion of the East West Rail link Central Section, together with some ideas about how this can be mitigated. The webinar will also be of interest to people living east of Cambridge along the single track line to Newmarket and those in the option E area.
For more background information see this post on the Mill Road Bridges web site, and our previous post on this web site.
The webinar will be held at 5pm on Saturday 19th December 2020.
Brought to Cambridge by Grant Shapps and the Department for Transport (spelling correction, by our Cambridge Approaches Horror Critic.)
EWR Co.’s 2019 public consultation about the EWR Central Section (EWR CS) does have a small paragraph about freight.
“The current indicative cost estimates are based on building a rail link that accommodates all types of rail freight. EWR Co will continue to consider whether providing capability for all types of freight is affordable and provides value for money in the context of anticipated freight demand.”
In summary they are saying that all options for rail freight are option.
As previously reported on this blog EWR Co. do now confirm that their proposed Option E route will support both freight and passenger services. But then we asked then the fateful question: Will there be freight trains at night? To which the response was:
“We have a study underway, and the next consultation will provide further information on freight on EWR.”
So the suspense mounts, but previous experience with EWR Co. suggests we had better prepare ourselves for the worst.
So, we are 2 years on from the 2019 consultation and not much progress on rail freight so far. This may be because EWR Co. are not responsible for the freight services, but Grant Shapps is. If you are kept at wake at night because of freight trains, its small comfort that they are not being operated by the EWR Co.!
Local MP, Anthony Browne, organised a meeting with EWR Co. and 20-30 Option E parish councillors on the 15th October 2020. At this meeting, freight services seemed an irritation to EWR Co. They explained that freight and fast passenger trains are not very compatible in the same timetable due to their different speeds. This leads us to conclude that much of the freight traffic will run at quiet times in the passenger schedule – for example at night. But also that EWR Co. may be resistant to review their plans in the light of freight demand.
The Cambridge Approaches alternative 7 route assumes a Cambourne north station with the line crossing the A428 before heading south through rural South Cambridgeshire passing between Toft and Comberton either to join the Cambridge Line south of Harston (which might then need to be four tracked) or to pass between Trumpington and Hauxton to join the West Anglia Main Line near Great Shelford. There would be collateral damage to several other beautiful villages and pieces of countryside not mentioned here for brevity.
From there, it would continue through Cambridge including the densely populated Mill Road area. Freight trains heading to the Haven Ports will then squeal around the tight bend onto the single track branch line across Coldham’s common and on towards the single track tunnel at Newmarket.
Like all good horror shows, it’s not always over when you think. The line may disturb people sleeping in residential Cherry Hinton, Fulbourn, and block up the 5 level crossings on the way to Newmarket. If you want to know what an overloaded level crossing is like try the one at Foxton. It is down 35 minutes in the hour at peak times.
“Route of Rail Forecast” from Network Rail
Another important question is how many of the freight trains are we talking about per day (or night)?
Our lowest estimate for freight demand at opening of the EWR, in 2025, is about 20 – 30 freight trains (all types) per day. It would also require capacity upgrade of the Cambridge to Newmarket line. This is based on the England’s Economic Heartland Freight Study (from Jun 2019, see page 64).
Figure 1: Routing of Rail Freight Forecasts published by Network Rail August 2020 p.16
Figure 1 above shows that the EWR link could divert about 50 freight trains per day by 2043/44. Assuming the worst case, that these ran at night to avoid conflict with the busy passenger timetable south of Cambridge, then we would have between 6 and 7 freight trains per hour. The report makes clear that this is a forecast for the total of trains going both ways. In 2043/44, we can see that the total traffic leaving the Haven Ports is between 100 and 120 trains per day.
The report explains that to alleviate capacity issues on other routes, they would want to use the new EWR and existing Felixstowe-Ely-Nuneaton lines as much as possible in order to leave the North London Line to handle freight from the North Thames terminals. Freight trains are not welcome in London where many parts of the system are heavily used by scheduled passenger trains.
On behalf of those people living close to the proposed or existing parts of the route I would ask you to stop and think about this for a minute. 6 or 7 freight trains per hour assuming all are over night. For people in the option E area and those south or east of Cambridge, consider also that when the EWR link crosses over an A road it needs around 8 metres of elevation about the road level. Freight trains demand gentle gradient, a maximum of 1:125. This implies an elevated track for 1 km either side of the A road. Noise would be heard a long distance away.
Cambridge at the Interface between Design Authorities
The EWR Central Section (Bedford to Cambridge) is being defined by EWR Co. and their contractor Arups for a fast passenger service. While the EWR Eastern Section (Cambridge to Ipswich) development is being designed by the EWR Consortium and their contractor Steer Consulting with freight from the Haven Ports in mind. But it’s one continuous railway.
Other than Grant Shapps of course, it is unclear who is responsible for the likely impact of freight on the Cambridge area. EWR Co. may protest that their 2019 consultation was non-statutory, but they are still narrowing down the options beyond the point where the Freight Night horror show for the Cambridge area becomes more and more likely.
To repeat what we have said, EWR Co. 2019 consultation did not inform the public about freight, except to say that all options are open. Nor was it mentioned in any of their analysis. Given this, how can EWR Co. possibly argue that their option E decision is still valid? We call for them to go back the drawing board listen to the public feedback about the northern approach to Cambridge, to consider also the eastern Cambridge approaches and come up with some new options that show more joined up thinking.
The CBRR Scheme and the Coldam’s Common Game
Map of Cambridge showing the EWR and Coldam’s Common
A map of the CamBedRailRoad (CBRR) proposal is here and its 14 identified advantages are set out here. It can be seen that CBRR propose a chord from the north (shown in red on the map above) around the edge of Coldham’s common so that through trains do not have to turn around on their journey through Cambridge. This CBRR route would also greatly reduce the amount of residential Cambridge blighted by the freight noise, because the route goes past fewer residential areas and the new chord would be less tightly curved. As a variant it would be possible to have a northern freight route that bypassed Cambridge completely.
EWR Co. removed the CBRR chord proposal in §16.15-§16.17 of their option report with such devastating arguments as it would cost money (who knew?) and the Coldham’s Common is a local nature reserve! (that is the pot calling the kettle black, don’t get us started on the environmental damage Option E would cause to South Cambridgeshire).
The CBRR route does mean passengers on through trains would need to change at Cambridge North rather than Cambridge Central if they want to go to Cambridge. Not a huge problem except for EWR Co. it seems (see option report §16.15). Of course if they want to go to Cambridge South or Stansted they can just stay on the train. (with the southern approach they would have to change.)
Then, in §16.22 of the Option Report EWR Co. we find this.
“However, approaching Cambridge from the north would require a reversing move at Cambridge station for any onward journeys to/from Ipswich, and to/from Norwich if services were to serve Cambridge rather than bypass the city, which would further increase journey times.”
BUT, THAT’S BECAUSE YOU DELETED THE CBRR CHORD!!!
CBRR rebutted every point in §16 of the option report here.
Game, set and match to CBRR on that one. Except that, oh dear, EWR Co. write the rules and so cannot lose. See here for further information
Rail Freight is a good thing, but in the right place.
Compared to transporting freight on the road, rail freight is a much greener approach, furthermore we can expect that by 2043/44 EWR will be electrified, and hopefully well before. However, the noise impact will still be very significant and there is really no reason to have to run this freight line through so many residential areas for the next 100 years.
Rail freight has to be part of the answer to the government’s objective to reduce carbon emissions and we support it for that reason.
As a parting thought the EWR Consortium say that the EWR link could be used to supply material for the construction of Sizewell C. The current approach could see large amounts of radio active material regularly passing through central Cambridge. Rail freight is good, but the line needs to be in the right place.
Conclusions
If it’s built we will see a significant amount of freight traffic on the EWR line. The West Anglia Main Line and Cambridge Line are already busy and if minimal upgrades are made then there will be pressure to run freight services at night. We call on EWR Co. to be much clearer on this point so that people know what is being proposed.
The whole section of the EWR link around Cambridge needs to be designed as a single system between Cambourne in the west say to Chippenham junction east of Newmarket. Having a change of design authority and budget holder at Cambridge almost bound to lead to sub-optimal solutions.
You can show your support for a better solution by signing CBRR’s petition for a fair assessment of a northern approach to Cambridge.
It’s time to ask again for a fair evaluation the EWR approach into Cambridge either to a north or south station. There are problems with the selection of option E which have been flagged on this site, in our stakeholder meetings and elsewhere.
CamBedRailRoad started a petition before the last EWR Co. consultation with the right question. Their petition to the Department for Transport already has more signatures than the number of people who supported option E in the consultation response.
