Campaigners have amplified their calls for the railway between Cambridge and Haverhill to be reinstated after an independent study found it would serve large populations and support the local economy.
The study found the railway could attract big passenger numbers, with modelling showing it would be much faster than the road at peak times if a frequent service was offered.
The work by Jonathan Roberts Consulting (JRC) was commissioned by Railfuture East Anglia, which says the move could link the city’s forthcoming Cambridge South station on the Biomedical Campus to Granta Park, Linton and Haverhill.
The volunteer-run rail user group is now calling on local and regional transport bodies to grasp the opportunity that reopening the line offers and start work on an outline business case.
The original line closed on March 6, 1967, during the Beeching cuts, following more than 100 years in operation – and for years campaigners have argued the move should be reversed. In spring 2021, Railfuture East Anglia submitted a bid to the Department for Transport’s Restoring Your Railway fund, and it was assessed as a “good case for future development”.
But it says the case was “demonstrably weakened by the lack of local authority support”. At the time, it clashed with the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority’s proposal for a Cambridgeshire Autonomous Metro (CAM) and with the Greater Cambridge Partnership’s plans for the Cambridge South East Transport (CSET) busway.
But the metro scheme was abandoned when Labour’s Dr Nik Johnson replaced Tory James Palmer as mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. Meanwhile, the GCP put its CSET busway plans on hold last year due to spiralling construction costs, as well as abandoning its Cambridge congestion charge plans. It has since
been handed £7.2m from the government to allow them to progress the scheme to the next stage, but this is far from the £162m needed to complete the project.
Railfuture East Anglia argues the time is right to pick up the Cambridge to Haverhill project.
The JRC report states the railway would serve large populations and support the local economy, linking Cambridge with Haverhill and serving principal stops at Cambridge South, Granta Park, Linton, Haverhill Parkway and Haverhill Town Centre.
The modelling shows that, in addition to these places, the railway’s catchment area would cover 100 parishes, as far as Thaxted, Braintree, Halstead, Sudbury and towards Bury St Edmunds. The total catchment area population would be between 90,000 and 165,000 – three to six times more than Haverhill on its own. A further 12 per cent population growth is estimated in the area up to 2041.
The study shows that the railway would attract very big passenger numbers, reflecting the already large passenger flows travelling by road along the A1307 corridor. It suggests that potential rail passenger numbers could be as much as 2,000 or more per hour during the peak period.
Demand modelling completed as part of the study shows that if the railway offers a quick journey and good frequency then it will compete with the road off-peak and be much faster at peak times.
A 21-minute journey time from Haverhill to Cambridge South could be achieved with a fast limited stop service serving Haverhill Parkway, Linton and Granta Park.
For places further into Cambridge, an additional interleaved inner service could serve places between Granta Park and Cambridge such as Babraham, Sawston and Stapleford.
The report found that tram-train technology could be the best initial operational standard as this would allow services to operate not only onto the main rail network to directly reach places such as Cambridge North, Waterbeach and a future station at Cambridge East, but could also link into a light rail system for Cambridge being promoted by Cambridge Connect.
A spokesperson for Railfuture East said: “With the backing of this report, Railfuture East Anglia believes this is a perfect moment for Cambridge to grasp these opportunities and take the transformational rail reopening scheme forward. We call on the various local and regional transport organisations to support the railway reopening by coming together to commission an outline business case as the next step.”
