Environment has been a key consideration for EWR Co at each stage of the planning and development of the proposals.
In 2019, EWR Co consulted on five proposed route options (a wide area that the railway could run through) for the new railway between Bedford and Cambridge. The feedback from communities and stakeholders was central to the decision to recommend what was referred to as ‘Route Option E’ as the preferred route option. This route option, linking existing stations in Bedford and Cambridge with communities in Cambourne and the area north of Sandy, south of St. Neots, received the most support from respondents.
This decision meant EWR Co could consult on more refined potential route alignment options (the exact line along which the railway would run) for the proposed new railway between Bedford and Cambridge and on other aspects of the wider project between Oxford and Cambridge in the 2021 non-statutory consultation. Almost 10,000 responses and, within these, over 160,000 individual matters were raised in response to the proposals put forward, which included environmental considerations such as noise, visual impacts and ecology.
The responses to these two non-statutory public consultations informed the route update announcement in 2023. More detail on how EWR Co has considered the environmental impacts of the project at each stage of the development is described under Consideration of alternatives.
Since the route update announcement, the designs have been developed to inform this non-statutory consultation. The design development has taken into account a range of factors including stakeholder feedback, environmental considerations, accessibility and inclusion, traffic assessments, safety and door-to-door connectivity.
In some areas, alternative options are being presented for feedback, and in each case, these have been evaluated through the application of a series of Assessment Factors.
