Beyond Oxford and Cambridge - other comparable darlings?

[CMS1]

Norwich is a decent and prosperous city. You could build a new line from Newmarket to Thetford (alongside the A11) via Mildenhall, with a curve to Soham, to give a better and more direct connection between Norwich and Cambridge (continuing to Stansted) and boost growth in the zone in between. Including doubling Cambridge to Newmarket where possible, with new stations.

 

[yorksrob]

The challenge for all of these is making 'being a bit isolated ' into a benefit (which being 'the largest place for miles around ' can be).

In the case of Hull, it worked for Philip Larkin.

 

[Mikey C]

Norwich is really part of the Cambridge/East Anglian high tech zone, "The Cambridge Norwich Tech Corridor", rather than a separate regional centre.

I've always felt that the rail service between Cambridge and Norwich needed to be significantly improved, as that's a far more important regional connection than Norwich to Ipswich. The roads reflect this, with the A11 to Norwich being dualled, whereas the roads between Norwich and Ipswich are single carriageway.

 

[Magdalia]

You could build a new line from Newmarket to Thetford (alongside the A11) via Mildenhall, with a curve to Soham, to give a better and more direct connection between Norwich and Cambridge (continuing to Stansted) and boost growth in the zone in between.

Norwich-Thetford-Cambridge already has a railway line. No government is going to spend billions building another one.

Including doubling Cambridge to Newmarket where possible, with new stations.

This just might happen, but it will be driven by economic growth in Cambridge, not Norwich. Improvements beyond Newmarket are blocked by Warren Hill Tunnel.

I've always felt that the rail service between Cambridge and Norwich needed to be significantly improved, as that's a far more important regional connection than Norwich to Ipswich. The roads reflect this, with the A11 to Norwich being dualled, whereas the roads between Norwich and Ipswich are single carriageway.

This is more important for Norwich than it is for Cambridge. But it is difficult to justify more than 2tph Norwich-Ely, and Norwich likes its cross country link via Peterborough too.

 

[Julia]

Getting things done is made harder by the fact that a lot of the built up area (and almost all the expansion room) is in neighbouring local authority areas (in places, the seams burst in the 1930s)

True in a lot of places. Nottingham springs to mind as a complicated mix of authorities, and back to the OP, the recent northern developments in Cambridge are actually in South Cambs DC. Cue rants about the dog's breakfast of governance that Cambs is generally!

 

[cle]

Bath would no doubt be more of an Exeter if it wasn’t so close to Bristol.

As it stands, beautiful place for visiting and for studying - but it’s a small city. More Durham if anything.

I can’t see a ton of home building or high value job creation though.

Rail POV it’s very high demand to and from London and Bristol. Again, Durham (re Newcastle). Not much of an inbound system.

 

[lachlan]

Bath would no doubt be more of an Exeter if it wasn’t so close to Bristol.

As it stands, beautiful place for visiting and for studying - but it’s a small city. More Durham if anything.

I can’t see a ton of home building or high value job creation though.

Rail POV it’s very high demand to and from London and Bristol. Again, Durham (re Newcastle). Not much of an inbound system.

A lot of tourism and commuting into Bath, as well as out. At weekends on the way to Bristol, the trains empty out at Bath.

 

[rapmastaj]

I'm going to say Swansea. On the door step of the Gower with a growing cultural/foodie scene, and a university that seems to be doing well. The council have invested quite a lot into regenerating- e.g the recently opened arena. If (and obviously its a big IF) the Swansea Bay lagoon happened, you could see the city being very successful. I think you'd need a bit of vision however to build a Cardiff/Valleys style Swansea Bay metro.

Swansea is so beautiful and underrated. Oh how I miss living 10 minutes walk from the beach, with a castle at the end of my street. The local rail services there don't deserve to be such a poor relation to Cardiff and the Valleys.

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Rotherham does quite well for aspirational schemes: Tram-Train and the upcoming new station.

Rotherham on the other hand I would say is somewhere that punches far below its weight and will never be a popular railway hub or destination.

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

A lot of tourism and commuting into Bath, as well as out. At weekends on the way to Bristol, the trains empty out at Bath.

Exactly, the Portsmouth and Weymouth trains are chock full of people going to Bath.

 

[The exile]

Bath would no doubt be more of an Exeter if it wasn’t so close to Bristol.

I can’t see a ton of home building….

You’ve clearly not been looking very hard!

 

[Magdalia]

In the South West Region Bath Spa is the second busiest station after Bristol Temple Meads in the ORR 2023/24 data. Bath Spa has more entries and exits than Exeter Central and Exeter St Davids combined.

ORR publish a top 10 flows where neither station is in London. 1-8 are all in Central Scotland, the West Midlands and Greater Manchester, but Bath Spa-Bristol Temple Meads is 10th just behind York-Leeds.

Two other flows of similar size to Bath Spa-Bristol Temple Meads and York-Leeds are Durham-Newcastle and Ely-Cambridge.

 

[camflyer]

Would be nice to have a line from Sunderland to Durham without having to go via Newcastle.