Just to flag this meeting on the 14th January to discuss consultation feedback. It’s our opportunity to influence the parish council response and to get ideas for our own responses. There is an article on the Cambridge Approaches website which explains how to respond the consultation here. It is important that people do respond by 24 January. In the meantime consider signing this petition to pause the development and get your friends and family to do so as well. If you think EWR will not affect you listen to this and look at this (esp. 5minutes in).
There is a window of opportunity for all Haslingfield residents that care about the impact that EWR would have on our parish including Chapel Hill, the poor residents who would have construction sites close to their homes and indeed all of us who would suffer years and years of disruption, to provide formal feedback to the proponents of the scheme. Our Campaigning in 2021 has resulted in some changes for example a short tunnel through Chapel Hill, but there are still many issues. There is a Cambridge Approaches post here which explains how to do respond and describes some of the issues you make wish to raise. If you think it would not affect you I recommend that you have a look at this video from 8:50. You might also reflect that this railway is intended to support growth of the Cambridge Economy (although the evidence presented for that very flawed) and that if you divided the capital cost of building the railway equally amongst all residents of the greater Cambridge area today we are being asked to pay £53,000 each.
The Parish Council are also organising a meeting which I believe is 14th January 2025 at 1930, they will no doubt confirm the details of that.
Cambridge Approaches and BFARe have come together to start this petition to “Pause plans for Oxford-Cambridge rail link pending a full, independent review”. It has had over 2000 signatures in its first 48 hours, but due to the snap general election it will be terminated at 00:01 on 30th May 2024. So we have until next Wednesday to send a message to the next government that we are not happy with the proposals for East West Rail. Please sign the petition and ask your friends and family to do so as well. Read more
This document summarizes some of the contributions over 80 people have made to the Heritage Ecosystems Impact Assessment of the proposed East West Rail corridor (Cambourne to Cambridge). Thank you to everyone who has participated thus far! If you are keen to contribute to the study, the project team will be hosting a meeting [TBA] to discuss these results and work with anyone interested in collaborating on the next stage of the project. This study is funded by the University of Cambridge (independent of East West Rail). [Posted on behalf of the Heritage Ecosystem Impact Assessment for EWR]
This is the best visualisation I have seen of what Chapel/Money Hill would look like during the construction of EWR. If we are lucky enough to get a cut and cover tunnel.
This is the twice postponed Haslingfield EWR Drop In Event and still the first chance villagers have had to meet EWR staff face to face and have our say about the proposed railway. In case you think it’s not happening, speaking on Look East this week, our new PM Liz Truss gave her in principle support to the railway although she would not be drawn on whether it would stop at Bedford or continue to Cambridge. Read more
EWR Co’s consultation opened yesterday. They are consulting on a single route alignment for Haslingfield and Harlton which is part of a 7km long elevated section from north of The Eversdens to somewhere east of Harston. With the exception of an up to 17m deep cutting on Chapel Hill the rest of the proposed route seems to be about at or about 10m above local ground level so at or above rooftop height. The proposed track crosses the Harlton to Haslingfield road just outside Harlton and has an underpass for road traffic. There is a map of the route here and a section plan here. The rest of the consultation can be found here.
The next East West Rail consultation on route alignments in our area has been imminent since the start of January 2021. We are currently told that it will be out before Easter. Now is a good time to step up the campaign for a fair consultation on the northern approach to Cambridge as well as the southern approach.
The EWR action group in The Eversdens is opening up to invite like-minded people from Haslingfield and Harlton to attend (but also any local village). It’s a Zoom meeting on Thursdays at 8pm on this link. All welcome. This group is well connected with other parts of the CA campaign. Through this group you can get involved with various more specialist teams working on the project.
A new email group has been set up for residents Haslingfield and Harlton so that we can exchange information and views about the proposed East West Rail line and how it might affect the villages of Haslingfield and Harlton. You can of course stay in touch with wider issues on cambridgeapproaches.org and also on the excellent Haslingfield and Harlton facebook group.
