East West Rail: Could a new rail link 'tear apart' a village?

A new £5bn railway line connecting Cambridge and Oxford will transform much of the area between the two university cities. It could see one Bedfordshire village grow from a population of about 600 to more than 44,000. What would that change mean for people living there and how do they feel about it?

Tempsford is proud of its history. From the Battle of Tempsford in 917 when Edward the Elder saw off the Danes, to RAF Tempsford being used as a staging post for secret airborne missions into occupied Europe in the 1940s.

Some villagers are preparing for a new battle following confirmation that it have a station in the confirmed route of East West Rail, although no exact time scales for development have been announced.

Steve Cooney is the village's unofficial historian. He has been collecting documents, photographs and maps about the village since the 1990s and opened Tempsford Museum and Archives 10 years ago.

Mr Cooney, 63, said the rail link might be "good, in many respects" but the new housing that could come alongside it is "just going to tear our village apart".

Standing among the museum's exhibits – including an antique horse-drawn fire engine and a World War Two-era air raid siren – he said he fears the RAF base will be targeted for development. "I think it will be devastating for our village," he added.

Tempsford used to have a station on the East Coast Mainline, which runs to the east of the village.

Teacher Clare Lawrence, 69, has lived in the old station master's house since the 1980s but does not support the new railway.

"The railway is not in any way to do with local people, helping us," she said. "Very few people need to get to Cambridge."

For her, it is a "ruse" to justify new housing. The plans, which she says have been in the pipeline for years, are creating "anxiety for those of us who can see that a whole way of life is going to be uprooted".

David Sutton, who chairs the parish council but spoke as a village resident, said: "I'm not against actually what I'd refer to as sustainable development.

"The village does need to grow a little, but be completely engulfed in a new town is a different story," the 49-year-old added.

"Having great communications is really important and that does give us a unique opportunity – east, west, north and south – but we have to be conscious that it will change the village forever."

In May, East West Rail and the Department for Transport confirmed their preferred route for a new stretch of track connecting Bedford and Cambridge, including a station at Tempsford.

A East West Rail technical report published at the same time suggests the village could see its population rise by 44,000 through "dependent development". East West Rail said that is a "potential scenario - not a forecast" and stretches to "2050 and beyond".

"The case for East West Rail does not specifically rely on this level of growth – but it may enable it," the company added. It will also be ultimately up to "local decision makers" to determine how much development happens.

The builder Urban & Civic has negotiated options to build on almost 1,000 hectares (2,400 acres) of land near the proposed station. That could see up to 7,000 new homes.

The company said the area could support a "significant and sustainable new community, unlocked by the substantial investment in rail connections which would come with a station" and that it wants to work in partnership with "local authorities and local communities" to create a "shared and positive vision for the local area".

Nikki Pitman, 50, a virtual personal assistant who moved to the village in November, said a new station would be "brilliant".

"I think it's a great benefit to the village because there isn't any form of transport here," she said.

"If you go out into London or Cambridge it would be a great opportunity to get a train there and back."

Retired nurse Paulette Smith, 63, said that without a car villagers are "a bit stranded" and having a station within walking distance would be "quite handy".

"It would be nice to have a little bit more life in the village and I think for the young people – I mean, they must be bored out of their minds because there's nothing for them to do," she added.

"I can't think of anything they can do – they have to be driven everywhere."

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