East-West Rail (EWR): Consultation updates [not speculation]

[Trainbike46]

Cost Benefit Analysis, so an overview of the costs and benefits of a project with a sensible counterfactual, can be useful, but a BCR expressed as a single number is, in my view, more harmful than helpful. It hides the (many) assumptions and political choices that are at the root of the calculations.

Another example of this, to add to many great points made by people including Magdalia, is that for many things how you value them relative to each other is a political choice, and one that is very much up for debate. For example, some people will value easier access to friends and family higher than others. Certain politicians will put a cost of zero on carbon emissions, whereas others will try and put a number on this (which vary by at least a factor 10 between different analyses). Hiding the assumptions and choices being made between a single number that is either under or over 1 is misleading at best.

 

[JamesT]

The strategic case. As pointed out by Magdalia, its all about the oxford-cambridge corridor and developing that and the wider economic impacts of that are not included in the bcr.

No, the wider economic impacts are, hence the name. The strategic case centres around things that cannot be monetised.
And the strategic case for the Thames Crossing was such that it was specified as a national priority, the same as EWR.

 

[Trainbike46]

It is economically illiterate to assert that imports mainly benefit the exporting country. In any case, the road goes both ways. Business travel and commuting is likely to be a small fraction of the - comparatively- small volume of passengers on E-W rail.

This is where I point out that, if there is anyone replying to this thread who isn't economically illiterate, it is Magdalia. They are literally an economist!

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 28 Oct 2025 ==

BCRs are incomplete and imperfect. But they are a building block - if you can’t get a decent BCRs as a starting point, you may as well go home.

I garantuee you, that if you give me a month and the current analysis at the root of that BCR, I could produce a BCR that is larger than 1 by playing around with the assumptions and choices being made in the analysis. This is one of the dangers of Cost-Benefit Analysis, especially if expressed as a single number BCR - they can be made to say basically whatever you want them to say.

 

[Magdalia]

In any case, the road goes both ways.

The UK will be exporting very little through the Thames tunnel. UK goods exports are predominantly high value items going by air, and the people doing our exports of services won't be driving through the Thames Tunnel, they will be flying too. The HGV traffic through the Thames tunnel will be predominantly imports. Bear in mind that the value added in the distribution chain is often foreign owned too.

Business travel and commuting is likely to be a small fraction of the - comparatively- small volume of passengers on E-W rail.

Commuting will be huge coming into Cambridge from Cambourne, Tempsford and Bedford. Commuting into Cambridge by rail is already huge, which is why Cambridge is the busiest station in the East of England with over 10 million entries and exits in 2023/24, not far behind Cardiff and about the same as Bristol. The Ely-Cambridge flow is only slightly smaller than Bath-Bristol or Newport-Cardiff. Cambridge already does commuting in a big way and one of the main benefits of East West Rail is more of the same, especially from Tempsford.

This is where I point out that, if there is anyone replying to this thread who isn't economically illiterate, it is Magdalia. They are literally an economist!

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 28 Oct 2025 ==


I garantuee you, that if you give me a month and the current analysis at the root of that BCR, I could produce a BCR that is larger than 1 by playing around with the assumptions and choices being made in the analysis. This is one of the dangers of Cost-Benefit Analysis, especially if expressed as a single number BCR - they can be made to say basically whatever you want them to say.

I did cost benefit analysis as part of my studies. It was almost 50 years ago, when the UK still had a manufacturing industry. It was designed for relatively small investments, with short payback periods. An example of when to use BCRs was a company investing in new plant and machinery. Do they choose product A that does P for price X or product B that does P+Q for price X+Y? The payback period would be 3-5 years, not 50-100 years.

The one part of the EWR process where BCRs did yield some useful information was assessing the different route options under the same assumptions, and this contributed to the decision on the route chosen in 2023.

It is an important point that different assumptions give different BCRs. In particular changing the assumptions can move the result across the BCR=1 line. One of the amusing features of this group is the number of people who fall into the BCR>1 good but BCR<1 bad trap.

 

[zwk500]

I garantuee you, that if you give me a month and the current analysis at the root of that BCR, I could produce a BCR that is larger than 1 by playing around with the assumptions and choices being made in the analysis. This is one of the dangers of Cost-Benefit Analysis, especially if expressed as a single number BCR - they can be made to say basically whatever you want them to say.

For EWR you probably could. But there's a limit to how far assumptions will swing things without being really obvious in the methodology.

The more important part of BCR assessments are the sensitivity tests, IMO.

 

[FMerrymon]

It is an important point that different assumptions give different BCRs. In particular changing the assumptions can move the result across the BCR=1 line. One of the amusing features of this group is the number of people who fall into the BCR>1 good but BCR<1 bad trap

Exactly and something the government are trying to clarify

Green Book Review 2025: Findings and actions

www.gov.uk

HM Treasury will update the Green Book to provide greater clarity on the role of the BCR in appraisal. It will make clear that the Green Book does not endorse the use of arbitrary ‘BCR thresholds’. It will outline that a BCR of less than one does not automatically constitute poor value for money. HM Treasury does not simply rank different projects, with different objectives, by their BCRs as a means of allocating funding.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 28 Oct 2025 ==

No, the wider economic impacts are, hence the name. The strategic case centres around things that cannot be monetised.
And the strategic case for the Thames Crossing was such that it was specified as a national priority, the same as EWR

No, the wider economic impacts do not cover all aspects. For example, hs2 WEI's didnt include level 3 land use change, which is significant, amongst many other things.

One aspect is that benefits may unlock only with other policies whoch in the case of oxford Cambridge is the delivery of housing, labs etc. The wider economic benefits stated will include agglomoration as a direct effect of the line, but not the transformational effects of the entire strategic aim. You can see this clearly - oxcam arc is not worth £1.5bn of economic benefits, its an order of magnitude more.

From https://www.gov.uk/government/publi...s/green-book-review-2025-findings-and-actions

HM Treasury will work with relevant departments, including MHCLG and the Department for Transport (DfT) as well as local and regional government, to introduce place-based business cases. These will bring together the different projects that are needed to achieve the objectives of a particular place. Place-based business cases will make sure that the government properly assesses the complementarities between different projects, such as housing and transport.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 28 Oct 2025 ==

An important point here that many are missing

The Green Book is the government’s guidance on assessing the costs, benefits and risks of different options to achieve government objectives [footnote 1]. The Green Book does not set those government objectives. Nor does it make decisions on behalf of ministers. It provides a framework for assessing the value for money of alternative proposals for meeting those objectives, and it supports officials to provide impartial and objective advice to ministers. Successive governments have pursued regional equality objectives. However, this review has heard that these objectives are not always fully reflected in business cases. By design, business cases typically answer the question “what is the best way to undertake this project?”, rather than “what is the right project to improve growth in this area?”. During this review, HM Treasury has listened to experts from across the public sector, private sector and academia. HM Treasury has heard loud and clear the concerns of stakeholders about the Green 1 ‘The Green Book’, HM Treasury, March 2022 7 Book. Those concerns include poor strategic cases underpinning projects, the over-emphasis on benefit-cost ratios (BCRs), and a lack of clarity on how to appraise ‘transformational’ schemes. The Green Book, and the way it is used, needs to change.

 

[slowroad]

Exactly and something the government are trying to clarify

Green Book Review 2025: Findings and actions

www.gov.uk

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 28 Oct 2025 ==



No, the wider economic impacts do not cover all aspects. For example, hs2 WEI's didnt include level 3 land use change, which is significant, amongst many other things.

One aspect is that benefits may unlock only with other policies whoch in the case of oxford Cambridge is the delivery of housing, labs etc. The wider economic benefits stated will include agglomoration as a direct effect of the line, but not the transformational effects of the entire strategic aim. You can see this clearly - oxcam arc is not worth £1.5bn of economic benefits, its an order of magnitude more.

From https://www.gov.uk/government/publi...s/green-book-review-2025-findings-and-actions



== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 28 Oct 2025 ==

An important point here that many are missing

There are good reasons for scepticism about claimed transformational benefits that are wildly disproportionate to direct benefits, as revealed by this review of the transformational benefits of past transport schemes:

Transformational impacts of transport

Contextual factors that help transport investment projects to make transformational impacts to the wider economy.

www.gov.uk

A rail line carrying relatively small numbers of people at peak times is very unlikely to have large wider or transformative benefits.

 

[Magdalia]

A rail line carrying relatively small numbers of people at peak times is very unlikely to have large wider or transformative benefits.

East West Rail is going to carry large numbers of people at peak times. It will take time, but I expect Tempsford to become the biggest flow at Cambridge apart from London. The transformation potential at Cambridge is already visible, especially at the Biomedical Campus. East West Rail and Tempsford will help to ensure that the transformation isn't throttled by lack of homes for workers and transport to get them to work.

 

[FMerrymon]

There are good reasons for scepticism about claimed transformational benefits that are wildly disproportionate to direct benefits, as revealed by this review of the transformational benefits of past transport schemes:

Help me with the relevant bits that counters what has been said in that respect.

 

[slowroad]

Help me with the relevant bits that counters what has been said in that respect.

East West Rail is going to carry large numbers of people at peak times. It will take time, but I expect Tempsford to become the biggest flow at Cambridge apart from London. The transformation potential at Cambridge is already visible, especially at the Biomedical Campus. East West Rail and Tempsford will help to ensure that the transformation isn't throttled by lack of homes for workers and transport to get them to work.

so how many passengers per hour? A few hundred? Not going to drive transformation.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 28 Oct 2025 ==

Help me with the relevant bits that counters what has been said in that respect.

The review makes clear that there were generally limited - if any - benefits that could reasonably be considered transformative or would cause a radical revision of relative assessments made on the basis of direct cost-benefits. And the report was commissioned by DfT. It needs to be read in context and assessed for credibility in that context. Just like reviewing a business case in that respect.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 28 Oct 2025 ==

so how many passengers per hour? A few hundred? Not going to drive transformation.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 28 Oct 2025 ==


The review makes clear that there were generally limited - if any - benefits that could reasonably be considered transformative or would cause a radical revision of relative assessments made on the basis of direct cost-benefits. And the report was commissioned by DfT. It needs to be read in context and assessed for credibility in that context. Just like reviewing a business case in that respect.

Apologies due: I originally linked the wrong report. Corrected:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6437f3098b86bb000cf1b191/transformative-impacts-of-transport-investment-final-case-study.pdf

 

[weeklycommuter]

East West Rail have the following statement on their website about the Planning and Infrastructure Bill and its implications for the previously planned route-wide Statutory Consultation in January 2026 which is under review.

East West Rail | The planning process

A Development Consent Order (DCO) is a piece of law that gives authority to East West Rail Company (EWR Co) to build the new railway. This will outline our planning process.

eastwestrail.co.uk

What effect could the proposed Planning and Infrastructure Bill have on East West Rail?
The Planning and Infrastructure Bill (PIB) is currently going through Parliament and, if passed, could change the way major projects like East West Rail engage with the public during the planning process. We are now working alongside the Government to work out what these changes might mean for East West Rail and how we will deliver our project. If passed, the law would support the intent to deliver benefits to communities as early as possible, whilst offering a more bespoke approach on how to meaningfully engage with stakeholders as our designs develop.
What is happening now?
Whilst recognising the Bill is still in the Parliamentary process, East West Rail is considering amending its plans to reflect the proposed reforms and the previously planned route-wide Statutory Consultation in January 2026 is under review. We’re still working through the detail of this and expect to be able to provide more information on how this might work in practice in the autumn. But we think the PIB offers scope for more bespoke and timely engagement than might have been the case under our previous plan. As well as reflecting the potential changes in the planning process, our work is continuing to consider feedback to the recent consultation and developments including the recent announcement of Universal Studios along the line of route. We expect to have more updates on this later this year.

 

[Magdalia]

so how many passengers per hour? A few hundred? Not going to drive transformation.

Cambridge's transformation doesn't need driving, it is already happening, but it is being restricted by constraints. The three most important are water shortage, housing shortage (Cambridge has some of the highest prices outside London) and inadequate transport infrastructure. What Cambridge needs is removal of the obstacles that will prevent that transformation from reaching its potential. East West Rail, Tempsford and Cambourne are a big part of that: don't do them, and the transformation that is in our grasp will be lost.

I did my economics learning almost half a century ago. Now I watch what is happening in and around Cambridge, and see something that I have only seen once before in the UK during that half century. That was the economic growth in the City of London that followed financial deregulation. It was also a transformation that did not need driving, but did need action to remove obstacles preventing it from happening. The growth of the City of London would have been stifled without the Docklands Light Railway, the Jubilee Line extension, and the electrifications to Cambridge and Norwich. Growth in Cambridge will be stifled without East West Rail, and the UK is not in a financial position where it can let that growth slip through its fingers.

 

[chrismk]

KC Close and R cook have [published "Going East published by Amberley press which charts the closure and moves to re-opening.

 

[jfowkes]

Less sophisticated, and apples and pears, but E-W rail may carry around 2,000 passengers per hour on busier sections. The LTC may carry around ten times this number of vehicles (including lots HGVs). Gives an impression of relative benefits….

Did these passenger estimates come from the same people that estimated the numbers for Okehampton, Borders, Northumberland or Crossrail?

 

[zwk500]

Did these passenger estimates come from the same people that estimated the numbers for Okehampton, Borders, Northumberland or Crossrail?

Well Okehampton's numbers have stabilised after the ramp-up period pretty broadly on the projections

Dartmoor Line (Crediton - Okehampton) Reopening - Early Impact Evaluation Published

Following on from other threads on the interim reporting, the DfT has now published a report evaluating the early Impact of the line reopening. LINK: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dartmoor-line-evaluation-of-re-opening The summary is that the line is being well used and well...

www.railforums.co.uk

IIRC @Bald Rick has said on other threads that Borders's overall numbers are pretty much in line with the projections but individual stations have some variance, and that Crossrail's numbers are accurate with the Year numbers after adjusting for the late delivery of the line.

Meanwhile Northumberland's passenger numbers were projected in the OBC at:

[Table of Demand and revenue projections for 2023, 2025, and 2039]
https://gat04-live-1517c8a4486c4160...p40_-_outline_business_case_november_2019.pdf

'T' options are operated by Northern with normal rail ticketing, 'A' options are Metro operations and zonal ticketing. A2 is the option closest to what has eventually happened, with Northern operating the trains but the line being within the Metro tickets Fare zones.

SO 704,000 return journeys annually projected at the OBC in option A2, or 1.4m journeys a year. And after being open for 8 months with fewer stations opened, the line had achieved 0.5m journeys:

Major milestone marked as half a million journeys are made on the Northumberland Line | Northumberland County Council

www.northumberland.gov.uk

It's not bang on the nose, but it's well within the ballpark. Certainly not the margin of error some journalists had been bandying about. I haven't found a publicly published FBC to check what the latest numbers projected were.

 

[Class 170101]

This Government is proposing the build the Lower Thames Crossing whose costs are ten billion pounds upwards and increasing all the time so the Government can clearly fund East West Rail all the way from Oxford to Cambridge. If the Government were to cancel the Lower Thames Crossing, the money saved would fully fund East West Rail with several billion pounds to spare for other rail projects. The benefits of rebuilding an Oxford to Cambridge railway will repay the cost of building it many times.

The Government has again and again in budget after budget committed to building East West Rail all the way from Oxford to Cambridge so I expect it will be done.

I would cancel public funding of the Lower Thames Crossing and let the private sector build it - See M6 Toll, that would leave funding (10bn or so) for EWR and some other projects less likely to get private sector funding.

 

[Bald Rick]

£7bn would be unaffordable; and not justified.
They may as well all just go home now.

It’s £5-6bn at 2021 proces, so reasonable to sssume over £7bn now.

It’s also a priority project for Treasury, mostly for the reasons @Magdalia has explained so well.

 

[FMerrymon]

The review makes clear that there were generally limited - if any - benefits that could reasonably be considered transformative or would cause a radical revision of relative assessments made on the basis of direct cost-benefits. And the report was commissioned by DfT. It needs to be read in context and assessed for credibility in that context. Just like reviewing a business case in that respect.

Apologies due: I originally linked the wrong report. Corrected:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6437f3098b86bb000cf1b191/transformative-impacts-of-transport-investment-final-case-study.pdf

I cannot see how you've come to that conclusion from that report. Its more a report looking at factors that make a transport project transformational. The report you've linked to is the case studies, the results are discussed in https://assets.publishing.service.g...transport-investment-qca-technical-report.pdf (if anyone else wants a look).

 

[hwl]

I would cancel public funding of the Lower Thames Crossing and let the private sector build it - See M6 Toll, that would leave funding (10bn or so) for EWR and some other projects less likely to get private sector funding.

The world isn't that simple.
The private sector would price in a lot of risk and the project size is unattractive (too big) for many in private sector hence very fewer bidders.
There appear to be a number of senior people in the civil service who actually understand how project finance works globally and have actively been structure projects across multiple departments to reduce risk, overall cost and increase speed of delivery.
Three useful case studies: Sizewell C, EWR and LTC (LTC is now being managed by DfT major projects not Highways England).
Key Elements before getting the private sector involved in the finance side or the main civils/structures contract:
1. Get legislative permission in place (governments have made this much harder over the years an we may be seeing it get slightly easier)
2. Land purchase either voluntary or compulsory purchase
3. Site possession
4. Detailed second round survey work
5. Utilities and drainage diversions
If you do those steps then much less uncertainty and risk is priced in to later stages and if it is private sector financing that is a lot less risk to finance.
Projects with long construction periods are much more expensive to privately finance.

With Sizewell C the Government is going to refinance part of it early stage financing later if and when the project has been suitably derisked in practice. With LTC the government is getting on with the 1-5 above. BB already had some contracts for the surface road either side, these will end up being directly privately financed in due course (with part of the tolls recovering the cost), the tunnel will be financed by the government with part of toll revenue paying this back over time.
EWR is being derisked by having 1-5 either done or in progress before going for the big civils project.

Slicing some of the projects up scope wise also provides better transparency on cost and risk to a much wider audience.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 29 Oct 2025 ==

Cambridge's transformation doesn't need driving, it is already happening, but it is being restricted by constraints. The three most important are water shortage, housing shortage (Cambridge has some of the highest prices outside London) and inadequate transport infrastructure. What Cambridge needs is removal of the obstacles that will prevent that transformation from reaching its potential. East West Rail, Tempsford and Cambourne are a big part of that: don't do them, and the transformation that is in our grasp will be lost.

I did my economics learning almost half a century ago. Now I watch what is happening in and around Cambridge, and see something that I have only seen once before in the UK during that half century. That was the economic growth in the City of London that followed financial deregulation. It was also a transformation that did not need driving, but did need action to remove obstacles preventing it from happening. The growth of the City of London would have been stifled without the Docklands Light Railway, the Jubilee Line extension, and the electrifications to Cambridge and Norwich. Growth in Cambridge will be stifled without East West Rail, and the UK is not in a financial position where it can let that growth slip through its fingers.

Amen! Unlike the huge majority of places in the UK it doesn't need to be driven hard it just needs road block removing - that is very rare.

There is a huge legacy of green belt issues here (Oxford too) that is holding back UK growth and this is probably the easiest way to defuse some of them.

 

[InTheEastMids]

let the private sector build it - See M6 Toll,

In practice, the M6 Toll has failed to do what it was supposed to do. The operators realised that nearly all the wear and tear would be from HGV. So what they did was price HGV at a level where most operators thought it better value overall to take the risk of the M6, most of the time. Whilst this forgoes revenue from tolls, that additional income must have been outweighed by impact on maintenance/repair costs.

That of course, doesn't mean LTC can't be built via another private-finance route - a significant number of road schemes from the 1990s were done on a Design, Build, Finance, Operate model; A1(M) Huntingdon-Peterborough and A50 Derby-Stoke spring to mind.

Would support everything that @hwl has said about how difficult private finance is to obtain for very large infrastructure projects that take a long time to build. It's one of the reasons Hinkley Point C was so challenging not just to build, but to get to final investment decision (Back in 2007, the head of EDF was saying it'd be in commercial operation around 2017. It didn't get the final go-ahead until Theresa May was PM).

There's a non-zero chance that the Sizewell C model, or something like it, will come to the railway if it looks like it's working elsewhere. I understand the French have used a similar model for LGV, so if that is felt to be working, it's entirely possible that future phases of HS2 or even EWR itself could use the model.

 

[hwl]

In practice, the M6 Toll has failed to do what it was supposed to do. The operators realised that nearly all the wear and tear would be from HGV. So what they did was price HGV at a level where most operators thought it better value overall to take the risk of the M6, most of the time. Whilst this forgoes revenue from tolls, that additional income must have been outweighed by impact on maintenance/repair costs.

Agreed the M6 toll is a bit of a flop and the term is very long too

That of course, doesn't mean LTC can't be built via another private-finance route - a significant number of road schemes from the 1990s were done on a Design, Build, Finance, Operate model; A1(M) Huntingdon-Peterborough and A50 Derby-Stoke spring to mind.

The uncertainty in the tunnel section (largest TBM bore diameter in UK by far) causes issues here. On the continent you will often see a split of easy straight forward road build and complex bridges and tunnels with construction split and financed separately. (But everything under the same owner / management company but hug numbers of sub-companies owning small elements that were built and financed separately). Similar to building most of the A3 then coming back later to do Hindhead Tunnel separately. Everything is broken down into manageable chunks.

Would support everything that @hwl has said about how difficult private finance is to obtain for very large infrastructure projects that take a long time to build. It's one of the reasons Hinkley Point C was so challenging not just to build, but to get to final investment decision (Back in 2007, the head of EDF was saying it'd be in commercial operation around 2017. It didn't get the final go-ahead until Theresa May was PM).

There's a non-zero chance that the Sizewell C model, or something like it, will come to the railway if it looks like it's working elsewhere. I understand the French have used a similar model for LGV, so if that is felt to be working, it's entirely possible that future phases of HS2 or even EWR itself could use the model.

Agreed I can see the Sizewell C / LTC model getting used again if it works in practice. It isn't new, just new to the UK and it is good to seen lessons being learn from elsewhere.

[I did private sector O&G project finance years ago and ended up in regulation before eventually moving to rail]

 

[camflyer]

Cambridge's transformation doesn't need driving, it is already happening, but it is being restricted by constraints. The three most important are water shortage, housing shortage (Cambridge has some of the highest prices outside London) and inadequate transport infrastructure. What Cambridge needs is removal of the obstacles that will prevent that transformation from reaching its potential. East West Rail, Tempsford and Cambourne are a big part of that: don't do them, and the transformation that is in our grasp will be lost.

I did my economics learning almost half a century ago. Now I watch what is happening in and around Cambridge, and see something that I have only seen once before in the UK during that half century. That was the economic growth in the City of London that followed financial deregulation. It was also a transformation that did not need driving, but did need action to remove obstacles preventing it from happening. The growth of the City of London would have been stifled without the Docklands Light Railway, the Jubilee Line extension, and the electrifications to Cambridge and Norwich. Growth in Cambridge will be stifled without East West Rail, and the UK is not in a financial position where it can let that growth slip through its fingers.

I agree. Infrastructure investment doesn't guarantee growth but lack of it is almost certainly going to hold growth back.

I moved to Cambridge 25 years ago and the change in the city in that time has been remarkable but there are clear barriers for the next quarter of a century and beyond. As one of the most affluent cities in the country with some of the best brains in the world, Cambridge should be leading should be leading the way in what a modern city looks like in the mid-21st century.

 

[Class 170101]

The world isn't that simple.
The private sector would price in a lot of risk and the project size is unattractive (too big) for many in private sector hence very fewer bidders.
There appear to be a number of senior people in the civil service who actually understand how project finance works globally and have actively been structure projects across multiple departments to reduce risk, overall cost and increase speed of delivery.
Three useful case studies: Sizewell C, EWR and LTC (LTC is now being managed by DfT major projects not Highways England).
Key Elements before getting the private sector involved in the finance side or the main civils/structures contract:
1. Get legislative permission in place (governments have made this much harder over the years an we may be seeing it get slightly easier)
2. Land purchase either voluntary or compulsory purchase
3. Site possession
4. Detailed second round survey work
5. Utilities and drainage diversions
If you do those steps then much less uncertainty and risk is priced in to later stages and if it is private sector financing that is a lot less risk to finance.
Projects with long construction periods are much more expensive to privately finance.

With Sizewell C the Government is going to refinance part of it early stage financing later if and when the project has been suitably derisked in practice. With LTC the government is getting on with the 1-5 above. BB already had some contracts for the surface road either side, these will end up being directly privately financed in due course (with part of the tolls recovering the cost), the tunnel will be financed by the government with part of toll revenue paying this back over time.
EWR is being derisked by having 1-5 either done or in progress before going for the big civils project.

Slicing some of the projects up scope wise also provides better transparency on cost and risk to a much wider audience.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 29 Oct 2025 ==

But surely road projects are a better risk / reward profile than railways? In that case how do you get the private sector to finance and build any of those schemes given that public sector funding is very tight, reference media suggestions that Income Tax rates may have to rise to fill a black hole of £20bn to £35bn. Perhaps Lower Thames Crossing would save (or fill) £10bn of that hole.

 

[hwl]

But surely road projects are a better risk / reward profile than railways?

Yes - If they are nice boring surface roads (relatively low £/mile cost so longer distance typically involved). Big bridges or tunnels that are higher risk and cost /mile get split off and done separately

In that case how do you get the private sector to finance and build any of those schemes given that public sector funding is very tight, reference media suggestions that Income Tax rates may have to rise to fill a black hole of £20bn to £35bn. Perhaps Lower Thames Crossing would save (or fill) £10bn of that hole.

The current government plan is that the private sector do the simple boring road building bits with that ultimately being privately financed. (Balfour Road to the North £1.2bn and Skanska road to the south £450m).

The nominal cost is £8.6bn with around £1bn already spent, which then averages out at ~£1bn per construction year including private financing or £850m excluding private financing.
Construction and supply chain keeps lots of people employed with tax and NI paid.

So you would need to find 35 LTCs to cut...

 

[Cowley]

I think we’ll put a pause on this thread for now as it’s starting to drift somewhat.

If there’s anything relevant to add in the future then report this post and we’ll have a look at it.

Thanks everyone!
-----

Edit: Reopened to enable @bspahh to post an update

 

[bspahh]

A councillor Adam Zerny posted on Facebook

EAST WEST RAIL - TAKE A LOOK AT POTENTIAL TEMPSFORD RAIL STATION
.
It's now a year since East West Rail (EWR) last consulted on the proposed route of the railway from Bedford to Cambridge, so I recently took the chance to chat to them about how their plans are looking. They have shared with me the latest plans of how a new station in our area might look.
Back in November 2024, I posted [1] about the latest route consultation. This showed a couple of options of where the route might go, near to Tempsford. One line is about 1km from the existing village
And in June I provided more details on what EWR was saying about the consultation [2]. At the time, EWR was planning further public engagement later this year. I understand this is now likely to happen in the spring.
My guess is there will be an announcement in the coming weeks on next steps, as these usually occur around the time of the budget.
In the meantime, work has already commenced to plan how a potential station at Tempsford might look. You can see from the detailed (attached) image, that the main line and EWR stations would be set slightly apart, but, I'm told, close enough for passengers to walk between the platforms.
Of course the elephant in the room is the government's proposals for a New Town, upon which we are expecting to hear a decision in the spring [3]. Regardless of this, it seems unlikely there will be any major changes to the plans for a rail line from Bedford to Cambridge.
When might we see trains on the line?
Simon Lightwood (Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Roads and Buses) recently said in parliament that "Services between Oxford to Bedford via the Marston Vale Line will commence from 2030 with the full Oxford to Cambridge services beginning in the mid 2030s."
I understand the latest plans will seek 5 trains per hour.
Appendix
[1] EAST WEST RAIL CONSULTING AGAIN ON PROPOSED TRAIN ROUTE https://www.facebook.com/profile/100058282171382/search/?q=EAST%20WEST%20RAIL
[2] LATEST NEWS ON EAST WEST RAIL - GOVERNMENT CONFIRMS £2.5BN FUNDING https://www.facebook.com/adamzerny/posts/pfbid027ejX6rk3MEWvSuME5AyEhR993dkm8v8847H4KcXfqmsR325z3JzLjDPnHtZakUSRl
[3] GOVERNMENT ANNOUNCES NEW TOWNS REPORT - TEMPSFORD IS ON THE LIST https://www.facebook.com/profile/100058282171382/search/?q=new%20towns

 

[Farigiraf]

A councillor Adam Zerny posted on Facebook


View attachment 192256

I do hope there is at least some passive provision for a Hackney Downs/Central-style walkway as from the attached images it appears you may have to walk alongside the road to reach the other set of platforms, which would kill a lot of the station's potential as an interchange. Even if not elevated, a footpath similar to the one at Shotton would be adequate (although at Shotton there are plans to move High Level closer to Low Level after all, so in 60 years' time Tempsford may face the same scrutiny over not opting for a Worcestershire Parkway solution in the first place.)

 

[absolutelymilk]

I do hope there is at least some passive provision for a Hackney Downs/Central-style walkway as from the attached images it appears you may have to walk alongside the road to reach the other set of platforms, which would kill a lot of the station's potential as an interchange. Even if not elevated, a footpath similar to the one at Shotton would be adequate (although at Shotton there are plans to move High Level closer to Low Level after all, so in 60 years' time Tempsford may face the same scrutiny over not opting for a Worcestershire Parkway solution in the first place.)

It looks like there are stairs down from the EWR platforms to the ECML platforms?

 

[zwk500]

I do hope there is at least some passive provision for a Hackney Downs/Central-style walkway as from the attached images it appears you may have to walk alongside the road to reach the other set of platforms, which would kill a lot of the station's potential as an interchange. Even if not elevated, a footpath similar to the one at Shotton would be adequate (although at Shotton there are plans to move High Level closer to Low Level after all, so in 60 years' time Tempsford may face the same scrutiny over not opting for a Worcestershire Parkway solution in the first place.)

The EWR station building also serves the ECML platforms. The Southbound ECML platform is visible in the drawing as being almost the full width of the page. (I assume the ECML platforms will be sized for 12-car trains so >240m long.)

 

[Starmill]

The EWR station building also serves the ECML platforms. The Southbound ECML platform is visible in the drawing as being almost the full width of the page. (I assume the ECML platforms will be sized for 12-car trains so >240m long.)

Yes. Think of Tamworth but bigger and with a second main entrance.