Cambridge Connect say attitude towards idea of light rail and metro for city is changing

The attitude towards a light rail network with an undergound section is changing, says the man behind the proposals.

Colin Harris set up Cambridge Connect to put forward the concept and devised the 22km Isaac Newton line, with 3.2km running underground. He estimates the line would cost £626million – or nearly £1.3bn if three extensions were added.

Now, after AstraZeneca completed a tunnel under the Cambridge Biomedical Campus to carry energy and other services between its buildings, there is renewed hope that going underground could provide a solution to the congestion problem above ground.

Mr Harris said: “There’s been a complete change in the politicial landscape in my view in the last couple of months.

“When I started the Cambridge Connect initiative the door was pretty much closed to discussion about light rail and especially about tunnelling.

“The reasons for that were assumptions made about practicality and affordability. Of course there was the question about the size of Cambridge.

“However, we’ve tried to question those assumptions and look at what the data tells us – such as data on the Cambridge economy, which is fundamentally different from towns of a similar size to Cambridge. The Cambridge economy is actually larger in terms of turnover than the city of Manchester.

“Cambridge is fundamentally different in the scale of economic activity here, the values, its globally outstanding heritage, the history of the city and of course the university.

“There seems to be a realisation now that the approach of using buses is not going to be enduring or sufficient for looking ahead to the late 2020s and 2030s.

“Given the scale and pace of growth, that’s a very short-sighted approach and I think the penny has dropped with some of our political leaders.”

But isn’t Cambridge’s population – even given its current growth – simply too small to make light rail sustainable?

“My view is they haven’t done the proper analysis yet to make that kind of statement. What we’re calling for in the first instance is to do the proper analysis. To do a demand analysis study you are looking at a substantial amount – £50,000 to £100,000 for a fully professional study. If you are looking at other things like the technical feasibility of the study and the costs of that, you are looking at £150,000.

“We can’t do that as Cambridge Connect or even as Railfuture, but what we can do is put the argument that these studies should be done and the money should come from organisations like the City Deal because they have a responsibility to plan.”

A world-leading expert on tunnelling, Prof Lord Robert Mair, a Cambridge resident, has previously given his view.

“He considers it ideal for tunnelling – and easier than London, possibly one reason for that is it’s not criss-crossed with infrastructure – it’s a lot simpler in that respect.

“There are some sewers but generally you’d be going below that anyway,” said Mr Harris, an environmental consultant who runs a small business focused on environmental management problems internationally.

“I’m not doing it for me. I was just so concerned about the implications for this amazing city. This place is globally outstanding in terms of its environment and its heritage values and its world class business activity. This is unique – it’s absolutely world class and we’ve got to do better,” he said.

His proposals can be broken down into sections to make them more viable and affordable.

“You could even take the Isaac Newton line and break that into two components. For example, you could go from Girton interchange to Addenbrooke’s as your first component and your second might be to extend out to Granta Park,” he said.

“The point of all that is you can develop your network in a staged way without having to come up with the full cost. You can do it over a 10 or 15-year period but the important thing is you are planning ahead and you actually have a vision of where it’s all going and how it’s all going to tie together.

“We need to be thinking about that because otherwise the corridors that are necessary to enable the full network could be compromised.

“I don’t underestimate the scale of the challenge, however. We are looking at investment in the order of several billion. We need to figure out how we do that putting together the public finance with private finance.

“But for the Newton line, you could complete a bi-directional tunnel in under 18 months.

“The practicalities are quite doable – getting all the political and financial elements in place are almost the biggest challenge.”