Concern has been shared that the money spent on plans to build a new busway into Cambridge would have been better spent on reopening the Haverhill trainline. Councillor Heather Williams said she believed reopening the railway between Haverhill and Cambridge would make a “big difference” and help “relieve pressure on the growth of the city”. However, others have said they still want to move forward with building the new busway as part of the Cambridge South-East Transport Scheme (CSET).
The CSET project was paused by the Greater Cambridge Partnership (GCP) last year after increases in construction costs meant it did not have enough money to fund all of its projects. However, earlier this year the government announced it would give £7.2 million of funding to start progressing the major transport project again.
The scheme proposes to build a new dedicated and mainly off-road busway, as well as a segregated walking and cycling route, from a new travel hub off the A11 to the Cambridge Biomedical Campus.
The GCP is planning to ask Cambridgeshire County Council, as the highways authority, to submit a Transport and Works Act Order (TWAO) application to ask for permission to build the new busway. The partnership is also proposing to separately start early work to build improved cycling and walking infrastructure along Francis Crick Avenue, as well as new bus stops to support the planned opening of Cambridge South Station in 2025.
Members of the GCP’s joint assembly met last week to discuss the plans to move forward with the CSET project. Williams said it was a ‘difficult and challenging’ project as she said the infrastructure was needed. However, she said she could not support the project moving to the next stage as she said she did not think the busway was the right proposal.
Cost of reopening the Haverhill trainline
“Hundreds-of-millions-of-pounds that have been spent would have been better off being spent to reopen the railway with Haverhill,” says Williams, “but I appreciate there are other things with that. It actually makes me feel really sad, because I know the work that has gone in by officers, and I know it has been really challenging for residents as well, and the many, many rounds this has gone through, for everybody involved, whether you are for or against, it has just been a rollercoaster.
Williams says she can’t approve the next round, because she doesn’t think it’s the right thing for residents. She’s keen to point out that despite her disagreement, she respects the work that has been done on all sides. She remains firm in her belief that reopening the railway would make a big difference to transport and would also relieve pressure on the fastest-growing city in the country.
Cambridge’s growing transport needs
“We have seen expansion at Haverhill,” Williams says, referring to a Cambridge commuter town outside her jurisdiction in the neighbouring county of Suffolk. “But we don’t start looking at these things where development can happen further afield than just Cambridge, I worry we are going to be engulfed into a massive housing arena, especially with the new targets.”
Peter Blake, interim director of the GCP, said as part of the business case process for CSET the GCP has assessed reopening the Haverhill trainline. “The cost was put at somewhere between £600-£700 million to reopen the rail line.” He points out that despite there being a number of reopenings of rail station projects around the country, but the Haverhill line has failed to get traction with the rail industry. “It has been assessed, and should we move to the next stage of the planning inspectorate that will be laid as one of the alternatives we have looked at.”
Claire Ruskin, business board representative, said she did not think reopening the railway would be the right solution. While she said the busway proposals were “not ideal” she said they were “better than the other options we have had”.
Councillor Katie Thornburrow says better connections between Cambridge and Haverhill were important, but said a full scheme of that nature was “beyond” the county council and the GCP. However, she said it was an issue that needed to be resolved as she said there was a “huge number” of people travelling from Haverhill to Cambridge for work who are a “key part” of the city’s workforce.
Concerns were also raised by members of the public about the new off-road busway being built, arguing an alternative on-road bus lane would be a lot cheaper. Some claimed the plans for the off-road busway had only been progressed due to the previous Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Mayor’s plans for the Cambridge Autonomous Metro scheme, which was later dropped.
Future-proofing the busway for new transit options
Members of the joint assembly said they still supported moving forward with the busway, as they hoped it could be converted to allow for light rail or autonomous vehicles in the future.
Thornburrow said “future proofing” the busway so that it could be converted was an important issue for her. “I do not know what is coming along, but we need to ensure any routes we do like this can enable autonomous vehicles and new forms of mass transit that might be cost efficient and effective. I hope we can ensure that while we might be calling it a busway, it will also be a future route for all forms of light mass transit in the future.”
Councillor Tim Bick also picked up on the point about potentially adapting the busway in the future. He said providing the route initially as a busway meant it could be adapted into something else, like light rail.
Blake said the proposals for the CSET busway were not as “highly engineered solution as the current busways”. He said the “segregated solution” meant they could take off the buses in the future and retrofit the route to provide other transport options, such as light rail.
The GCP’s executive board is due to meet later this month and will be asked to agree that work can start along Francis Crick Avenue, and to request the county council to submit a TWAO application for the busway.
