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Lets look at places that could facilitate more development with a rail connection!
It doesn't necessarily have had to be on the rail network previously although some like a few of my suggestions will.
One view Ive held for a while now is that East Yorkshire could facilitate much more development around towns such as Market Weighton where it is also much flatter .
Another location I was thinking about a while ago was Boroughbridge
Not exactly a town, but I'd suggest Malden Rushett, just south of Chessington. Extending the line from Chessington South would also allow an intermediate station to be built at Chessington World of Adventures.
Not exactly a town, but I'd suggest Malden Rushett, just south of Chessington. Extending the line from Chessington South would also allow an intermediate station to be built at Chessington World of Adventures.
There's quite a lot of land available, although the majority of it is green belt but this could easily be overcome. Nearby on the outskirts of Epsom, house building on green belt land has been rampant.
One view Ive held for a while now is that East Yorkshire could facilitate much more development around towns such as Market Weighton where it is also much flatter .
One problem with Market Weighton is that there's no clear route to serve the town as the old alignment has been built on, and the most obvious useful route (from Selby to allow Leeds services) can't get the right side of the bypass.
Boroughbridge is an interesting one because it would also serve as a Ripon Parkway, and could be reasonably feasibly reaches from the ECML, albeit with a flying junction probably required to avoid impacting the IC service.
Further south Hailsham would be a good candidate although it's difficult to see a viable way to serve it without somewhere already on the network missing out given the congestion at the London end of any line it might connect to. And my personal hometown, Ringmer, could be part of a hypothetical Lewes-Uckfield link if people are prepared to look away from their 1960s maps, it's already 5k pop and growing fast.
Lets look at places that could facilitate more development with a rail connection!
It doesn't necessarily have had to be on the rail network previously although some like a few of my suggestions will.
One view Ive held for a while now is that East Yorkshire could facilitate much more development around towns such as Market Weighton where it is also much flatter .
The development of East Leeds New Town of 10,000 houses hasn't given a damn that the Cross Gates-Wetherby line is being obliterated by new houses. This is an ideal development where Penda's Way and Scholes together with one more station further north adjacent to the A64 trunk road from York. This is where trains excel in conveying 5-10,000 commuters daily into Leeds in the peaks. Instead Leeds City Council has decided that 300+ double decker bus journey's would be better into an already grid-locked city centre in the peaks.
Even electric buses produce tyre, brake disc and asphalt carcinogenic wear particulates especially at slow queueing speed braking and turning in town.
The trackbed should future proofed.
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Boroughbridge is an interesting one because it would also serve as a Ripon Parkway, and could be reasonably feasibly reaches from the ECML, albeit with a flying junction probably required to avoid impacting the IC service.
Why build a new railway to a settlement of 3,000 population then expect inhabitants of 18,000 in the City of Ripon to use it as a railhead. They won't when Thirsk station is only 3 miles further away, Harrogate is four miles further away, Northallerton is 13 miles further away and York is 19 miles further away from Ripon. If you have to drive to a parkway station with poor service, drive that little further to a railhead with a better service.
The second point, where would the new line be from and to Boroughbridge. I assume you will say from Cattal to Thirsk? If NYCC are cool on reinstating Harrogate-Ripon-Northallerton then it is an impossibility opening to a town of only 3,000.
A study was completed in 2004 to decide the route north of Ripon. Thirsk was discounted in favour of Northallerton because the town of Thirsk is too far from Thirsk station for short journey's from Ripon or even Harrogate when the bus goes straight to Thirsk town centre, Northallerton has a far better service to the North (all Thirsk services don't go beyond Northallerton) and joining a reinstated Ripon line to the ECML is easier done at a two-track Northallerton than a four-track Thirsk where the A61 overbridge would complicate a flying junction. A flat junction and signalling would be too costly, conflicting and out of the question. NOT feasible.
Ripon-Northallerton direct could be only 16 minutes. 10 minutes longer via Thirsk.
There is an established active reinstatement group in Ripon.
Plans to build 5,000 houses on the disused RAF Dishforth site near Boro'bridge is matched by 1700 houses on the disused Claro Barracks site and 700 on two further sites already passed planning permission seeing Ripon rise to 25,000 by 2026. Expansion of employment does not keep pace with expansion of population so Harrogate, Leeds, York, Darlington, Middlesbrough and Newcastle will see a rise in commuting, hopefully by rail.
65% of all Ripon commuters already commute along the A61 to Harrogate, Leeds and Bradford and 27% travel north on the A1 and A19 as far away as Newcastle and Middlesbrough respectively. (2004 NYCC and JMP studies) If all those stopped and questioned who said they could convert their road journey to rail, that would give a footfall of over 3,000 on weekdays at a reinstated Ripon station.
Ashtead Common is a National Nature Reserve and a Site of Special Scientific Interest. Like Hampstead Heath it is owned and managed by the Corporation of London.
Ashtead Common won't be built on. It didn't get built on in the 1940s and it won't get built on now.
Nearby Oxshott Wood/Prince's Covert is part of the Crown Estate. I think we can be confident that won't be built on either.
Once lines are drawn around Ashtead Common, Oxshott Wood and Chessington World of Adventures there is insufficient remaining undeveloped land for a new settlement.
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