Village 'shock' at East West Rail depot plans

Villagers living near the site of a proposed East West Rail train maintenance depot have spoken of their "shock" at the plans.

The rail company wants to build on land alongside Whaddon Road, west of Bletchley and Newton Longville, near Milton Keynes, as part of the scheme to link Oxford and Cambridge.

Caroline Armstrong said her livery yard would have to close if the depot was built as people ride horses there and "if anything spooks them they cannot rest and the last thing they need is to be disturbed constantly".

Natalie Wheble from East West Rail (EWR) said: "We really understand that any construction and any infrastructure has an impact on the communities that exist already."

If approved, the Bletchley West depot would include sidings capable of housing 20 five-car trains, each about 120 metres long, and maintenance workshops designed to service multiple trains.

Trains will be cleaned, inspected and maintained on site and it has been claimed it could create more than 100 full-time jobs.

But Armstrong said: "What they are proposing is huge and is going to impact an awful lot of people."

She added the road it could be built on was "quite dangerous as it is... a lot of traffic".

Mike Chapman, chairman of Newton Longville Parish Council, said the news was "a bit of a shock, because we did not learn about this until Tuesday afternoon of last week having been involved with the East West Rail public engagement team on their liaison group".

"We are already pretty close to Milton Keynes so this is a piece of industrial infrastructure that would be taking up more of our green fields," he added.

"Having that on the other side of what is already a massive housing development, which is being built now by Taylor Wimpey, is significant."

Buckinghamshire Council, the planning authority for the Newton Longville site, has "expressed its extreme disappointment" at the announcement of the proposed site.

Conservative council leader Steven Broadbent said: "This announcement has been made with no prior notice, and no opportunity was given for us to review this decision with EWR Co before it was shared more widely."

Peter Martin, Conservative deputy cabinet member for transport at Buckinghamshire Council, said main roads like the A421 were already heavily congested.

"Accessibility is not great as local roads are heavily congested at peak times already," he said.

He added he had concerns over "how they are going to get to site with all the raw materials" as "there is quite a slope so they are talking about a fair bit of excavation and earthwork".

Villager Tessa Haddon said: "At night it is totally quiet and there is going to be all sorts of noise if they work at night, even if they put it [the depot] in a building."

She added the proposed site was "much bigger than I think any of us realised" and she was "surprised they cannot find space in Bletchley, as the project was called Bletchley West".

Wheble said two design layouts were being considered.

At a previous consultation event, Richard Butler from the Bedford to Bletchley Rail Users Association said his group had "no objection to having a depot where they suggest".

"It is relatively close to Bletchley station to get trains out in the morning and back at night and it does not appear to be affecting residential properties," he said.

Wheble added that the rail company was "working towards submitting a development consent order [for the depot] in the middle of 2027".

She added that, if it were approved, then three years of construction could begin "at the end of the 2020s".

Update: This article was edited on 2 February. A quote which wrongly made it sound like two sites were being considered was removed.

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