• This is the summary of Smarter Cambridge Transport’s response to the Greater Cambridge Partnership’s Foxton Travel Hub 2021 Survey.
• The full response is available as a PDF document here.

Executive Summary

The Greater Cambridge Partnership (GCP) has pushed on with this so-called “travel hub” scheme at Foxton without proper consideration of the fundamentals. It is based on a Park & Ride strategy that:

• Incentivises people to drive rather than take a bus from closer to home, thereby undermining rural bus services.
• By undermining rural bus services, discriminates against those who depend on them, exacerbating social inequalities.
• Achieves no reduction in carbon emissions from road transport, but incurs large additional carbon costs in construction, operation and maintenance.
• Sterilises huge tracts of land, reducing biodiversity that then requires mitigation.
• Increases traffic, congestion and toxic air pollution from motor vehicles in villages on roads leading to P&Rs, including in this instance, Foxton, Harston, Shepreth and Barrington.
• Increases, not decreases, the risks of road deaths and injuries.

Moreover:

• The demand modelling is flawed, underestimating long-term demand from London-bound commuters to use the Foxton car park.
• Foxton station’s short southbound platform does not have sufficient capacity for passengers disembarking in the evening peak.
• We understand GCP has not consulted with the train operator, Govia Thameslink Railway, about the implications of this new car park on Foxton station and services calling at it.

An alternative strategy that would reduce carbon emissions, minimise negative ecological impacts, improve public health and reduce social inequality exists:

1. Assist the Combined Authority with seed-funding a build-up of rural bus services.
2. Build a network of travel hubs (multi-modal interchanges, not large Park & Ride car parks), including at Foxton station.
3. Build an extensive network of cycleways, linking villages to travel hubs, including at Foxton station.

Read the full response from Smarter Cambridge Transport here.