Affordable, reliable and faster public transport will mean less time spent in traffic and less carbon emitted from congestion, improving the quality of life for local people. It will also mean people can choose to live more affordably and have more space within an easy commute, rather than paying premium house prices to live close to work as many do today.

East-west public transport is currently limited to a coach service, which takes 1 hour 50 minutes between Oxford and Milton Keynes at peak times and the bus journey between Bedford to Cambridge takes up to one and a half hours. With EWR, these journey times could be cut to 45 minutes from Oxford to Milton Keynes and would take 35 minutes between Bedford and Cambridge.

Despite being a short distance apart, journeys from towns such as Milton Keynes and Bedford to Oxford and Cambridge take a long time because of congested roads and the lack of public transport. By offering rail travel as an alternative, EWR can help to ease traffic on local roads by reducing people’s reliance on cars. It will also give people more choice, offering more sustainable ways to travel and opportunities to relax or work while travelling.

EWR will offer new journeys to local communities because of its key intersections with most of the UK’s main rail lines – including the East Coast Main Line, Midland Main Line and West Coast Main Line – making it easier to get from Milton Keynes to Leeds or Cambridge to Manchester, as well as improved connections to international airports at Luton and Stansted.

EWR would help take cars and lorries off local roads resulting in cleaner air, safer roads and less congestion. The aim for EWR is to become a net zero carbon railway.

It currently takes nearly an hour to travel just 9 miles from Cambourne to Cambridge in the morning rush hour. EWR will reduce this to just 15 minutes. Bedford and Cambridge will be just 35 minutes apart, so EWR will massively expand the number of people within commuting distance of high quality jobs in the region.

Delivering the line between Oxford and Bletchley/Milton Keynes is expected to directly employ 980 people and support around another 500 in the wider supply chain, bringing around £1.1bn into the local economy in 2021/22. And that’s before the job opportunities that will open up for local people when these areas are connected.

Oxford and Cambridge are bursting at the seams. Connecting them with the fast-growing and less constrained towns and cities in between, like Milton Keynes and Bedford, will make places more appealing for people wanting to start and grow all types of businesses. It will help attract and retain the best talent in the region and bring businesses closer to their supply chains, research sectors, competitors and other sectors, creating wealth and jobs for an area of over 3.8m people.