News from the East Anglian Branch of Railfuture, edited by Martin Thorne and Jerry Alderson.
Railfuture News Snippets 403 - 31/10/2026
On 6th October 2026, Greater Anglia announced that "more than 400,000" people had used Cambridge South station in its first 100 days (it opened on Sunday 28th June so that would take the figure up to Monday 5th October 2026). Railfuture was surprised to see that the figure was no far more than 400,000, as it had been told that 300,000 had used it in the first two months. Railfuture will be seeking clarification on the figures. See new story.
GUIDED BUSWAY
Host of objections raised to Cambridge South East Transport (CSET) guided busway
According to an article in the Cambridge Independent newspaper on 2nd October 2026, major landowners and organisations around the Cambridge Biomedical Campus (CBC), such as AstraZeneca, have objected to the &pouind;162 million controversial CSET busway being proposed by the Greater Cambridge Partnership (GCP), primarily order to protect their interests. The main objection is the amount of land acquisition, particularly by the Pemberton finaly which are the freehold owners and/or occupiers of land and property around Addenbrooke's Hospital and at the campus, but there are also fears that it could cut off ambulances from accessing Addenbrooke's and Royal Papworth hospitals as the TWA order would disconnect Francis Crick Avenue and Dame Mary Archer Way from the public highway.
The mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, Paul Bristow, who strongly supports trams (as does Railfuture) has also objected to CSET, saying that the busway is the wrong scheme in its current form. He also warned that the bus service assumptions used in the business case cannot be guaranteed because future routes and frequencies will be set by the Combined Authority under bus franchising — he made this point at the public inquiry for the C2C busway, but that stil got approval from the Secretary of State for Transport, despite his objection and control over bus spending. Railfuture has opposed the CSET busway plan because it could prevent the reopening of the railway to Haverhill, but it did not comment on C2C as it did not affect the railway.
The objections have been published prior to the public inquiry, which is due to begin on Tuesday 8th December 2026 having been ordered by the Secretary of State for Transport after the GCP applied to the Department for Transport (DfT) for a Transport and Works Act Order for the scheme on 9th January 2005.
If given the ego-ahead, phase 1 of the CSET busway would run from the A11 road via Sawston, Stapleford and Shelford to the Biomedical Campus, with an active travel route alongside it.
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Railfuture East Anglia Branch News Snippets 403 - 31/10/2026
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