Have your say on East West Rail

The East West Rail Company's consultation is ending soon - on 9th June - so please ensure you have your say!

The Council held two public meetings recently and you can see these here and here.

The Council will be looking at the how East West Rail Company can mitigate the impacts across the whole route.

One of the first pieces of work finished has been on the impact on properties just north of Bedford station in the Poets area. The Council commissioned SLC Rail, specialists in rail projects, to conduct a technical review of this section of the route in response to the East West Rail Company's current consultation proposing six tracks to run north of the station. This report concludes that with efficient timetabling and some track layout adjustments it is possible to bring the East West Rail service through Bedford Midland without the need to demolish homes. This would also be a cheaper option than the proposed six tracks. You can see the report here.

The Government and the East West Rail Company have already made the decision for East West Rail to go north, following a previous consultation. Whilst everyone is entitled to oppose this, I would urge anyone responding to this consultation to comment on the proposed route alignments in the current consultation or they will miss the opportunity to influence which alignment gets chosen.

With regard to a southern route, any route would have impacts on our environment. When the Government and East West Rail Company decided on the Route E Corridor they concluded Route E had the least Environmental Impact and found that the routes via Bedford station and Cambourne 'have the fewest problematic areas with potential direct impacts on irreplaceable or sensitive features and the lowest likely mitigation effort.'

The southern Route B corridor via Wixams, that is often put forward as an alternative, could mean the need to demolish 150 homes in Wixams and run the railway close to south of Bedford communities such as Elstow and Shortstown whilst Network Rail plans also show a southern route crossing the river on a viaduct right next to Great Barford.

I know that residents impacted by the chosen route would prefer the route went somewhere else - that is totally understandable. But the alternatives suggested cause more problems and give less benefit to our Borough in terms of jobs and the boost to our economy. I want to assure everyone, no matter where you live, that we will do everything we can to reduce the impact of this railway no matter what route goes forward.

You can find out more about the consultation, including how to give your views at https://eastwestrail.co.uk/consultation.