Ely rail junction upgrade will take lorries off roads - report

Ely serves rail freight from the UK's busiest container port at Felixstowe in Suffolk

Improving a rail junction would take about 100,000 lorry journeys off the road per year, a report said.

Keeping Trade on Track said an upgrade to Ely junction in Cambridgeshire would also double passenger services on the Ely-Kings Lynn and Ipswich-Peterborough routes.

England's Economic Heartland and Transport East's report said changes were of "national significance".

Network Rail estimated the work would cost £466m.

The new report, from the two main bodies which study transport matters in the East of England, is another attempt to persuade the government to upgrade the notorious bottleneck.

It focuses on the impact on rail freight and describes the line from the Port of Felixstowe in Suffolk to the Midlands and North of England as "the most intensively used and nationally important rail freight corridor on the network".

"This is a corridor that's vital for global Britain's trade with the world which is served by a Victorian railway no longer fit for purpose," the report said.

It added that improving the junction would allow six extra freight trains a day to use the line, the equivalent to 450 lorries stretching more than six miles.

It also predicts 277,000 extra rail passengers would travel through Ely.

The Keeping Trade on Track report said junction improvements to increase rail freight at Ely could relieve congestion on roads and reduce carbon emissions

Network Rail said the junction signal and level crossing improvements would take six years to deliver but the report said the work would deliver a high cost-benefit ratio of £4.89 for every pound invested, and it would also cut carbon emissions.

I am told ministers and officials at the Department for Transport "get the argument" but the Treasury is worried about the cost.

The government has recently announced the proposed route for the final stretch of the East West Rail route, which runs from Oxford to Cambridge, and confirmed funding for a new Cambridge South station.

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Rail minister Huw Merriman said there were further spending announcements to come, and people should be patient, but he warned that funds were not unlimited.

"We've got a funding envelope that can only stretch so far," he said.

"A large part of it is going to be spent in Cambridge… and we've got to measure an approach across the country as a whole."

The Keeping Trade on Track report said junction improvements to increase rail freight at Ely could relieve congestion on roads and reduce carbon emissions

Local MPs recently described Ely junction as the most-needed piece of infrastructure investment in the region, and the freight industry and local business groups agreed.

They will be hoping the new report will strengthen their argument further.

Liz Leffman, vice-chair of England's Economic Heartland and leader of Oxfordshire County Council, said the "rail capacity improvements needed at Ely are of national significance".

"The scheme is an important connector for the economies of the Midlands and North and provides significant potential to relieve congestion on strategic roads while reducing emissions caused by HGV journeys which could more appropriately be made via rail."