We, the undersigned, petition for the proposed East West Rail (EWR) route to be moved to at least 500 metres away from all schools, houses, countryside villages and businesses between Cambourne and Harston for the route to be more respectful to local residents and students, or for the EWR route to be moved to a more suitable location altogether.

In particular we demand that the railway be moved away from Comberton Village College (CVC) and the Comberton village boundary. The proposed cutting is only 100mtrs away from the school boundary; we believe this is too close to the school and should be moved to approximately 500mtrs away for the safety and welfare of the school children.

The current EWR plan typically has too many ‘pinch-points’ and has been squeezed insensitively into too narrow a landscape resulting in it being too close to many local people’s houses, too close to CVC and too close to most rural villages along the route, including Childerly Gate, Highfields Caldecote, Hardwick, Toft, Comberton, Little Eversden, Harlton, Haslingfield and Harston.

Health problems:

Problems with the EWR route being too close to local residences and schools include significant and highly disruptive noise, dust, vibration and distractions from heavy vehicles and works whilst the infrastructure is being constructed, and afterwards, once the track is commissioned, of noise, vibrations and distractions from passenger and freight trains, all day and night. This can lead to mental stress, anxiety and reduction in concentration levels and related health issues.

Furthermore, there is no evidence of why the EWR route should travel so close to local buildings and schools when no stations are planned between Cambourne and Harston. This lack of local benefits gives increased reasoning to relocate the track further away from sensitive residential areas.

An alternative route would be preferred to avoid the above stated issues. These include options to relocate EWR to the more logical Northern Route, or south through Bourn Airfield (a brown field site, also ideal for Cambourne’s new railway station) or to the north-east, past the Rifle Range and then parallel to the M11 motorway, an already noisy and unpopulated route. Each alternative route has less impact on local people and the environment and would be simpler and cheaper to build.

The current EWR route is requiring expensive and damaging over-engineering to overcome its inherent design choice faults. Examples of engineering problems include:

Requiring a tunnel underneath a very narrow gap between Childerly Gate and Highfields Caldecote villages because it is otherwise too close to the houses through this poorly chosen pinch-point. This tunnel is causing huge stress amongst locals who do not want such an invasive transport infrastructure in or under their back gardens.

It is technically too close to the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory (MRAO) with the threat of interference to the scientific data at this leading Cambridge University institution, home to some of the largest and most advanced radio telescopes in the world.

Requiring a tunnel underneath Chapel Hill at Barrington and Haslingfield, a mammoth and hugely scarring engineering project, akin to cracking a nut with a sledgehammer.

A plethora of long, unsightly embankments, viaducts, over bridges, deep cuttings and two huge tunnels is required to make this short piece of track work.

The damage to the countryside will be immense with prime farming land obliterated, rather than using brown field sites of lower value land.

Huge damage to the environment, not enough wildlife corridors and, in particular, damage to the Barbastelle bats colonies, one of the rarest bats in the UK with only 5000 bats remaining, many having established breeding and feeding grounds in this area.

Summary:

Please sign this petition for the proposed East West Rail (EWR) route to be moved to at least 500 metres away from all schools, rural houses, countryside villages and businesses between Cambourne and Harston and for the route to be more respectful to local residents and students.

If the minimum 500 metre rule means the route needs to be moved to a new and different location altogether then that is the solution that should be pursued. Thank you for your support.