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East West Rail can help economic development

The proposed East-West Rail Link connecting Oxford and Aylesbury with Milton Keynes and Bedford could generate more than £38 million a year for the UK economy, says a leading economic forecaster.

Oxford Economics, which has just published a report on the economic case for investment, says there is a strong business case for reinstating track and upgrading the line to enable an East-West rail service to carry passengers from Reading to Bedford via Oxford and Milton Keynes and from Milton Keynes into London Marylebone via Aylesbury and High Wycombe.

The report – East West Rail: The Economic Case for Investment – comes at a time when there are concerns about the low economic growth outlook for the UK, and has been welcomed by a Consortium of councils and Local Enterprise Partnerships supporting an east-west rail link.

The case for this is so blatantly obvious that it is astonishing that the government is not driving it forward with the utmost urgency. In any other country in Europe with similar traffic densities, the entire group of routes from Marylebone to Birmingham, Paddington to Oxford and Banbury, and the east-west link would be in a rolling programme for upgrading and electrification.

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