What does the CBRR Route offer?

Put simply, CBRR believe that the EWR should serve as many people along its path as possible whilst minimising planning blight. Or put another way, it should maximise sustainability whilst minimising environmental damage. CBRR’s proposed route for the EWR achieves this by following the high density route of the A428 / A421, almost certainly to become the East-West Expressway, and provides four new stations to serve the people along the route.

The best way to find out the details of our proposed route is to have a look at Proposal PDF.
 
The key points to the CBRR route are:
  • Multi-modal transport corridor combining road and rail
    • Minimises planning blight, hence protects best landscape and productive land
    • Offers multiple transport options to residents
    • Significant potential to reduce project costs is considered in conjunction with the Expressway
  • Follows a more northerly route than current proposals, leaving Cambridge to the North and approximately following the path of the A428 and the proposed Dual Carriageway upgrade between Caxton Gibbet and the Black Cat roundabout on the A1, then on along the path of the A421
    • Serves the most densely populated areas of South Cambridgeshire
    • Serves St Neots, Cambridgeshire’s second biggest town
    • Serves the majority of the proposed 50,000 new houses to the North and West of Cambridge and at St Neots (80% increase in population for this area by 2030)
  • Provides 4 new stations, all with scope for ample parking outside of town centres to reduce congestion, travel time and air pollution
    • Provides 3 North – South railway interchanges allowing improved link both N-S as well as E-W
  • Integrates with the proposed ‘Cambridge South’ Station at Addenbrookes
  • Can be integrated with the Cambridge Metro plans to provide swift and efficient access for commuters from homes to workplaces
  • Opens up land for new developments to meet the ever-growing and anticipated future requirement for new homes
  • Provides a valuable freight route from Felixstowe docks in the East to the Midlands and West of the UK, hence relieving traffic pressure on the A14. We believe that whilst the cost of the CBRR route may be higher than the current ‘best performing’ route, the wider economic benefits will be many times greater, not to mention the environmental benefits

What about the current C Corridor proposal?

 
What it DOES do
  • Duplicates existing satisfactory service to Foxton, Shepreth, Meldreth and Royston, whilst requiring rail quadrupling
  • Cuts a massive swathe of planning blight through best landscape and agricultural land, instead of utilising a narrow multimodal corridor
  • Further isolates and threatens sustainability of expanding St Neots and Cambourne
  • Squanders Main Line Interchange opportunity, by isolating St Neots and distancing itself from Expressway
 
What it DOESN'T do
  • Provide sustainability for 50,000 approved new houses and the large existing population along the East West Expressway Route
  • Serve any additional approved developments
  • Deliver to North Cambridge, Silicon Fen, Felixstowe and points North and East
  • Improve Felixstowe rail freight, thus failing to offer new destinations north and west by-passing London and failing to relieve container traffic on Expressway and congested A14
 
Summary
CBRR’s route is common sense. We are yet to present our route to anyone who does not agree with the logic behind it. Those in the currently proposed C-corridor have nothing to gain from the EWR ploughing through their parishes whilst those along CBRR’s proposed route welcome the benefits it will bring.
Aidan Van de Weyer
(Deputy Leader, South Cambridgeshire District Council)

“The vitality of the Cambridge – Milton Keynes – Oxford corridor is crucial to the future prosperity of the whole country. We need to make bold investments in infrastructure to support that growth and make it sustainable. The East West Railway is the most important piece of the jigsaw, so we've got to work together and get it right by looking at what all the options can bring.”

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“The Green Party has proposed Britain’s biggest ever investment programme in public transport. South Cambs Green Party supports EWR and the northern route as proposed by CamBedRailRoad as it delivers an excellent train service to the huge new populations along the A428 corridor. Anything that helps rescue people trapped into car dependency and gives them better public transport choices is to be welcomed.”
Simon Saggers
(South Cambridgeshire Green Party)