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BAA Stansted Rail Access Consultation

Author: eMB
Date: 01 Jul 2007

The BAA Stansted Rail Access consultation outlined the proposed rail enhancements required to accommodate predicted growth with a second runway.  The West Anglia Routes Group submitted a response that called for improvements including new and longer trains and four tracking:

• Whilst BAA recognise the need for additional capacity to service the extra passenger travel demand to central and inner London created by any development of a second runway at Stansted, BAA’s current rail access proposals offer an insufficient solution to the problems presented.
  
• The West Anglia route is already tightly squeezed in terms of its capacity and performance due to its aged and inadequate infrastructure.
  
• Government ambitions for delivering new housing mean 4 tracking between Copper Mill Junction and Broxbourne is the only long term solution to accommodate the needs of the line. This is regardless of any growth in passengers at Stansted airport.
  
• 3-tracking the West Anglia route, as proposed by BAA, represents an inadequate solution to the corridors future demands and could indeed jeopardise or set back 4 tracking between Broxbourne Junction and Copper Mill Junction. We therefore urge BAA to reassess its rail proposals.
• WARG seek the development of a “Stansted Connect” service similar to that servicing Heathrow, with a greater number of intermediate stops to the Express service.
• WARG would like BAA Stansted to agree with Network Rail, the Department for Transport and Transport for London a joint timetable of infrastructure enhancement that would be required to service proposed developments at Stansted.
• WARG would like greater reassurance of BAA’s assessment of the impact of external factors in terms of the future pressure to be faced by the West Anglia Route and the corridor’s future infrastructure requirements. These include road-pricing, ‘oysterisation’ of the rail network and increasing house price inflation.
  

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