This follows on from my previous post covering Hertfordshire, this post looks at the counties east and west of Cambridge.
You can:
- Have a look at Suffolk County Council’s Local Transport Plan 2025-40 pages – mindful that this was signed off before the creation of the Greater Cambridge Development Corporation, whose boundaries are on its western border.
- Browse through Suffolk’s area transport plans mindful of the key towns of Newmarket (Surrounded by East Cambridgeshire District on three sides), Haverhill, Bury St Edmunds, and Ipswich.
- Browse through West Suffolk District Council’s new local planning documents
“How much of a administrative and political barrier was the county boundary to improving transport links between Cambridge and Haverhill in Suffolk?”
Well my previous efforts have gotten us nowhere!
Above-Left: Taking Puffles the Dragon Fairy from my old blog out to Haverhill Arts Centre to meet Rail Haverhill. Above-Right: same social media persona at the Press desk before a meeting of the Greater Cambridge City Deal Board at South Cambridgeshire Hall, Cambourne
Here’s me back in 2015 from my old blog on a call for ideas from the old City Deal Assembly
“The two main priorities I have are:
- Getting the views of young people in a systematic manner that will cover the period of the city deal.
- Haverhill Rail – see them on FB here and the leaflet here
Above – Giving evidence to the Greater Cambridge City Deal, 11 November 2015
Above – the leaflet from Rail Future East in 2015 *is still up online* because politicians have failed to do what has been obvious for decades and that is to reconnect the town to Cambridge
The petition sadly had no impact – in part because of the inability of their local MP at the time (Matt Hancock!) to focus on the needs of his constituents, ministerial ambitions taking priority.
I met some of the campaigners when I visited their event back in 2014, and they came along to Be the Change, Cambridge later that year – hence its appearance on their archived website. Fast forward to 2017 and the campaign had linked up with Cambridge Connect light rail as well.
“Why have Cambridge’s institutions failed to make the case for improved transport from Haverhill?”
Good question – especially given:
- Haverhill’s importance as a source of commuters into the Cambridge Biomedical Campus?
- the requests from the people and town councillors of Haverhill for improved transport provision?
If anyone wants to hold the Greater Cambridge Partnership accountable for this strategic failure, feel free to ask the councillors before the meeting of the Greater Cambridge Partnership Assembly that meets at Cambridge Guildhall from 2pm on Wed 15 October 2026. Keep it polite as some of the people on that assembly were not the decision-makers, and may not even have been councillors at the time the big decisions were made in the 2010s. It’ll be all the more powerful if the questions come from people new to local democracy in/around Cambridge.
The Haverhill Area Transport Plan – one of the supplementary documents to Suffolk’s Transport Plan 2025-40 name-checks transport improvements as a priority.
It’s worth having a browse through their plan – ditto Newmarket’s here, and Bury St Edmunds here. How do these compare with the call for sites in the West Suffolk Local Plan from earlier this year?
“The town has seen rapid expansion over the last two decades. Further growth is expected in coming years with large scale residential developments, notably in the northeast and northwest of the town plan area.
“Sustainable travel options are currently limited in Haverhill with often inadequate walking, wheeling and cycling routes. There is a limited bus service provision connecting surrounding communities and other urban areas such as Cambridge and Addenbrooke’s Hospital.”
Above – Haverhill Area Transport Plan (2025) p3
Hence their aim to improve bus transport as a core objective:
Above – Haverhill Area Transport Plan (2025) p10
“What are Haverhill’s vital stats?”
Nearly 28,000 residents.
Above – Haverhill Area Transport Plan (2025) p4
The long-overdue reconnection of the Warren Hill Junction chord east of Newmarket
I’ve highlighted this in previous blogposts before.
Above – from the Rail Future Newmarket presentation from 2019.
If the GCP had not been so parochial and narrow-minded they could have put up some funding to have gotten this link reinstated, providing an alternative route for trains from Cambridge to Ely every time the line through Waterbeach went down.
Re-instating that chord will enable rail journeys from Wisbech to Cambridge via Soham without having to occupy the Cambridge-Ely section of the line that has limited capacity.
Above – from Rail Future East – noting that the call from Rail Future East for a new station at Cambridge East has since been incorporated into the Government’s plans, although we’re still awaiting news on how much of the Cambridge-Newmarket line will be dualled and upgraded
Planners also need to ensure the land on the proposed reinstated chord is protected from development.
Using upgraded railway links from Cambridge to rejuvenate east coast resorts
I’ve mentioned this in previous blogposts. It takes about 2 hours to drive from Cambridge to Lowestoft. However, an upgraded Cambridge-Norwich rail link could significantly reduce the travel times – even more so if an electrified link incorporated restoring the old chord south of Norwich railway station enabling direct rail services to both Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft.
Above – detail from the New Adlestrop Railway Atlas in a blogpost on Cambridge-Norwich transport. See that little red line by Norwich? That’s the chord that unlocks direct train services from Cambridge to two of the most economically deprived towns in England.
Above – campaigning objectives from Rail Future East’s 2025 poster on improvements into Cambridge
Which reminds me:
Rail Future East’s Annual Cambridge meeting
- …will be on Sat 28 November 2026,
- Mill Road Community Centre, 6 Hazell Street CAMBRIDGE, CB1 2GN
- The speaker will be Stuart Ratcliffe, head of external communications at the East West Rail Company
More details as they get published via https://www.railfuture.org.uk/East+Anglia
And finally…Transport East
I wrote about them in 2021 here, noting that Cambridge is key to their transport strategy objectives even though Cambridge does not fall within their remit.
Above – detail of Transport East’s strategic corridors.
“We have developed a regional Transport Strategy setting out the direction for transport in the East up to 2050.”
Above – Transport East
Above – Transport East Strategy 2023, p67
The Eastern Section on East West Rail was also covered in a report from July 2025
Above – Case for investment in the eastern section of East West Rail, (2025), p16
You can see where the bright green EWR line ends. Assuming East West Rail restored the Norwich chord, it would open up future direct rail services to the east coast resorts. That said, it would also require the widening of some of the existing Cambridge-Norwich sections of the line to four tracks if ministers want that step-change away from motor cars to rail. Especially if they want to create space for suburban rail stopping services.
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