Rail Group Hopes for Stores Assistance
Friday, 25th July 2003.
EFFORTS to bring the railway back to Haverhill have taken a step forward and campaigners hope a supermarket chain will back them.
A motion was passed at a meeting of the Cambridge to Sudbury Rail Renewal Association to go ahead with a feasibility study on an initial light rail link from Haverhill to Cambridge.
It was also agreed to approach Tesco, which has bought the former Station Yard site in the town, offering it the opportunity to link the development to a rail halt.
The Strategic Rail Authority does not consider the line a viable proposition.
But the Rev Malcolm Hill, association secretary, said a petition signed by 10,800 people was believed to be the largest rail petition in the country. He quoted examples including the Wensleydale Line financed by small investors, where work was done at a tenth of the cost Network Rail would have charged.
Coun Jeremy Farthing, a St Edmundsbury Borough Councillor, said: "It is a long-term vision for Haverhill, but we need to plan for it now. We have too many cars and not enough roads. Concreting the countryside is not the answer."
A motion was passed at a meeting of the Cambridge to Sudbury Rail Renewal Association to go ahead with a feasibility study on an initial light rail link from Haverhill to Cambridge.
It was also agreed to approach Tesco, which has bought the former Station Yard site in the town, offering it the opportunity to link the development to a rail halt.
The Strategic Rail Authority does not consider the line a viable proposition.
But the Rev Malcolm Hill, association secretary, said a petition signed by 10,800 people was believed to be the largest rail petition in the country. He quoted examples including the Wensleydale Line financed by small investors, where work was done at a tenth of the cost Network Rail would have charged.
Coun Jeremy Farthing, a St Edmundsbury Borough Councillor, said: "It is a long-term vision for Haverhill, but we need to plan for it now. We have too many cars and not enough roads. Concreting the countryside is not the answer."
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