A message from our MP:
As you may have seen, Oxfordshire County Council has launched a consultation on OxRail 2040: Plan for Rail. This is our chance to shape the future of transport in our county for the next 15 years.
Here in West Oxfordshire, we face some of the worst congestion in the county. The Government has required thousands of new houses to be built locally, but we still have no railway serving Carterton, Witney, or Eynsham. Without action, the traffic problems on the A40 and beyond will only get worse.
That’s why it’s so crucial that the Council hears loud and clear from residents that we want the Carterton–Witney–Oxford railway restored. The consultation explicitly includes the proposal to revive the railway, but we need to demonstrate overwhelming public support to ensure it happens.
You can use the following text in your email, tweak it as much as you like, or just use it as inspiration for your own words. Just copy and paste into the text field on your email client:
I am writing as a resident of Oxfordshire to respond to the OxRAIL 2040: Plan for Rail consultation.
I firmly support the overarching ‘case for change’ and vision of this plan. Improving our rail network will have a range of positive outcomes, from supporting and spreading the benefits of economic growth through sustainable access to jobs and homes, to aiding our transition to net zero, and enhancing the inclusivity and connectedness of our communities. I do, however, want to ensure that within the next 15 years these benefits can be felt by many more residents of West Oxfordshire too.
West Oxfordshire’s communities and businesses are significantly underserved by the rail network, with the most populated and rapidly growing corridor in the southern part of the district not served by rail services at all. Indeed, as the Technical Evidence Base itself notes, “Most of our larger population centres ….. are close to our rail network, notable exceptions to this are Carterton and Witney.” I therefore note with approval the commitment given in Phase 1, 2025-30, to continue development of a proposed scheme to reconnect Carterton, Witney and Eynsham with Oxford. That must, however, be matched by unequivocal commitments to bringing the rail line to Witney and Carterton as well, to work towards securing completion of the new link by the end of the 15-year Plan period.
West Oxfordshire’s roads are already at capacity. Congestion on the Witney-Oxford stretch of the A40 is renowned for being particularly bad. A county council-commissioned study by AECOM in 2021 found that, even with the then-predicted increase in local housing, Witney-Oxford car travel will take 30 minutes longer by as early as 2031. Since then, planned housing growth in West Oxfordshire is now required by central government to be 65% higher than previously and the forecast express bus lanes linking Eynsham with Oxford are not funded.
While the consultation document refers to the need for a “mass rapid transit system” in West Oxfordshire, the county council’s own feasibility study published in November 2023 evidenced that a rail system is the higher-capacity, faster, greener, and more reliable solution than any other option. Restoring regular rail services across the southern part of West Oxfordshire would reduce future journey times between Carterton and Oxford, for example, by an hour, with a Witney-Oxford journey time of just 16 minutes. The rail line would also support the creation of new jobs and the sustainability of planned housing growth, or ‘place-making’ as it’s called, reducing carbon emissions and saving a million car miles a year. A Network Rail Western Route study last year showed Witney as 19th and Carterton 45th of the most significant unconnected population clusters among hundreds across the whole of Britain, with them ranked respectively fourth equal then sixth-highest of the 23 places studied in Western Route for ‘strategic fit’ – which speaks volumes about the justification and urgent need for a railway to connect them with Oxford.
Yours sincerely,
Send the above to: OxRAIL2040@oxfordshire.gov.uk
Witney Oxford Transport Group 