Opinion: Aylesbury spur railway refusal shows Government is not putting passengers first
One of our reader’s take on the Government’s continued resistance to adding a train service between Milton Keynes and Aylesbury.
Rail minister Lord Peter Hendy, just weeks after refusing to fund the Aylesbury rail link to Milton Keynes, is hailing the Government's commitment to improving passenger access to the rail network with Chiltern Railways leasing replacement carriages.
Chiltern Railways has agreed to lease 13 sets of carriages to replace some of their 40-year-old stock. The replacement stock was rejected by TransPennine services and had been stored for two years. Lord Hendy sees this as the Government putting passengers back at the heart of the railway and will make travel easier for passengers and extra services provide more opportunities to access work, live and socialise.
His comments come just weeks after the Government refused to fund the Milton Keynes to Aylesbury route upgrade. This would provide local travel opportunities, numerous connections at Milton Keynes avoiding the need to travel via London. The refusal ignores the fact that Network Rail has just started work to rebuild the section from Quainton Road to Claydon Junction but only to freight standards. So much for commitment to passengers. The support of local MPs has been ignored.
The decision comes in spite of the route meeting the ambitions of Great British Railways serving the passenger, improving connectivity, supporting extra homes and boosting the economy.
Meanwhile the rail regulator has called for the Government to clarify its policy for private investment in the network and claiming investors are seeking opportunities.
The whole issue raises the question of how far the Government's requirements for major house building in Bucks and Milton Keynes will be backed up by funding for extra infrastructure.
Editor’s Note: The rail minister told Bucks Council early this year that the Aylesbury connection was ‘out of the scope’ of the East West Rail project. Lord Hendy said: “This was because early work suggested that delivering any level of passenger service to Aylesbury was likely to have a poor business case and require significant unfunded investment and infrastructure improvements.
"However, the current work to enable services on the first section of the route between Oxford and Milton Keynes via Bletchley does incorporate passive provision for EWR services to Aylesbury in the future in the event that circumstances change.”