Government pledge to revisit stalled railway plans

The government will revisit plans to revamp a junction that connects five railway lines

Government officials have pledged to revisit stalled plans to improve a railway bottleneck.

Peter Hendy, the new minister of state for rail, is set for talks with Network Rail about the future of the long-awaited revamp of Ely junction in Cambridgeshire, which has been in the pipeline for many years.

The junction is a major intersection for both passenger and freight traffic and is where five railway lines, including those serving Norfolk and Suffolk, converge.

Improvements were announced by former prime minister Rishi Sunak in October but there remained a lack of certainty surrounding funding and timescales.

A spokeswoman for the Department for Transport said transport ministers recognised "the benefits the scheme could bring" for both freight and passenger services in East Anglia.

"Mr Hendy looks forward to discussing these proposals with National Rail in due course," they added.

Ely junction is important because it connects Norwich, Ipswich, Cambridge, Peterborough and King’s Lynn.

However it is currently operating at full capacity which limits the opportunity for growth of routes for passenger and cross-country freight services, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

The last publicly released estimate for the project, in January 2020, suggested it would cost £500m but construction costs, along with inflation, have risen since then.

Norfolk and Suffolk MPs have long campaigned for the improvements.

Ben Goldsborough, Labour MP for South Norfolk, said: "We only have one train station in the constituency so it has to work as well as possible.

"It’s clear that the Ely area capacity enhancement scheme is needed to take more freight off the roads and give us more trains to Wymondham. I will keep pressing on this."