New report highlights growth potential of fixing rail bottleneck

New report highlights growth potential of fixing rail bottleneck

A new report has highlighted how upgrades to strained rail infrastructure around Ely are essential for regional growth. 

The Combined Authority’s new report sets out a clear and compelling investment case, highlighting that the upgrade would deliver a 5:1 return on investment to the economy, as well as providing capacity for more frequent, faster rail services in Cambridgeshire and the East. 

Mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peteborough Paul Bristow said that failing to sort out rail capacity around Ely would hold back the local economy’s potential to create jobs and opportunity, and drive economic growth.  

The £466m upgrades, called the Ely Area Capacity Enhancement (EACE), would tackle the Victorian-era bottleneck where five rail lines meet at Ely, restricting both passenger and freight capacity. The new report, called ‘The Growth Intersection’ positions the project as a lynchpin for unlocking economic and housing growth in the whole East of England economy. Better rail services would benefit freight traffic from Felixstowe port, support growth in Norfolk and Suffolk, boost the Oxford-Cambridge corridor connectivity, and support journeys to London and the Midlands and the North via Peterborough.  

The need is pressing. Over the next decade, the Cambridge Biomedical Campus and Wellcome Genome Campus alone are forecast to expand to create a combined 32,000 new roles, and this level of job demand cannot be met within Cambridge alone. 

Upgrading rail infrastructure around Ely North Junction will open up those opportunities to more people in Cambridgeshire and the East of England by improving rail services. The project would also take freight away from the roads, removing 98,000 HGV journeys from the A14 each year. 

The Combined Authority and its partners are already exploring alternative funding routes, and establishing a strategic taskforce to engage Government to move the project forward.  

Mayor Paul Bristow said: “This new report once again highlights the exceptional potential of opening up this new gateway to the whole East of England economy. 

“Better, more frequent trains are  good for passengers, good for jobs and opportunity, good for business, good for new housing and good for growth.  That’s the case we are making in this new report.  

Returning £5 to our economy for every £1 spent, this investment will repay itself many times over and help deliver my ambition to triple the size of our local economy. We’re working on it, making the case to Government and not letting up.”

To read a short version of the Growth Intersection report visit: https://cambridgeshirepeterborough-ca.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/32145-Growth-Intersection-A4P-4pp-v2.pdf