Rail Connectivity: Oxfordshire
Debate between Charlie Maynard and Mark Hendrick(1 week ago)
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Sir Mark Hendrick (in the Chair)
I will call Charlie Maynard to move the motion and then call the Minister to respond. As is the convention for 30-minute debates, there will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up. Interventions, however, are permitted. I call Charlie Maynard.
Charlie Maynard (Witney) (LD)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered railway connectivity between Witney, Carterton, Eynsham and Oxford.
I am here to argue the case for bringing back the railway that connected Oxford, Eynsham, Witney and Carterton, but was torn up 50 years ago. That would cut journey times by 70%, connecting Oxford with Eynsham in roughly 11 minutes, with Witney in 16 minutes and with Carterton in 22 minutes. I have worked for the last four years with many parties, and I am deeply grateful to them all for their help. They include Oxfordshire county council; the district council in West Oxfordshire; town councils in Witney and Carterton; parish councils in Eynsham; the RAF; various landowners and developers, including Grosvenor at Salt Cross garden village; and England’s Economic Heartland—the list goes on and on.
The reason why I put so much blood, sweat, tears and toil into the issue is that we have two huge problems in West Oxfordshire—there are probably others as well, but the two big ones are transport and housing. They are two sides of the same coin. In transport we have the A40 corridor, which links Oxford and points east with Cheltenham and Gloucester and points west. Oxford city is at the centre of that web; it is one of the strongest growing cities in the country and is putting enormous pressure on Oxfordshire. To the west is some of the worst-served infrastructure in the whole county. There is no major railway station apart from Hanborough, which is very small with one train an hour, and there are just a few miles of dual carriageway—yet enormous housing is coming into the district.