Get on board: the potential for 27,000 homes around existing stations between London and Cambridge.
Around England’s rural railway stations there is the capacity to build between 1m and 2m homes depending on where one sets an appropriate development density.
My own research has established this figure at around 1.2m homes, assuming development is constrained to just 10 minutes’ walk (approximately 800m) from a station, assuming a gross residential density of between 40 and 75 dwellings per hectare.
The eastern branch of the Thameslink railway franchise links London St Pancras (and beyond it, Brighton) to Cambridge, passing through Essex and the south Cambridgeshire countryside. The total journey time from Brighton to Cambridge takes just under two-and-a-half hours, with St Pancras the halfway point. Three quarters of an hour later the train arrives at the first of four rural stops: Ashwell & Morden, Meldreth, Shepreth and Foxton. In the middle of these sits the town of Royston (see map, below).
Foxton is just 12 minutes from Cambridge station; Ashwell & Morden 47 minutes from St Pancras and an hour from Kings Cross. These stations are extremely well connected, but serve a very low number of homes within the surrounding area.
In the year ending March 2023, Ashwell & Morden station had 140,000 passenger movements (entrances and exits) with just under a third of these in the direction of Cambridge.
Connections to the road network are also strong, with Meldreth, Shepreth and Foxton all located on, or close to, the A10, which links London to Cambridge. Ashwell & Morden is immediately adjacent to the A505, linking the M1, A1(M) and the M11.
Currently, Thameslink trains call at Ashwell & Morden and Royston, but Meldreth, Shepreth and Foxton are served by the Great Northern franchise, linking Cambridge to Kings Cross. The track is the same, and there is no reason why these two could not be consolidated into a single service. The proposed route for East West Rail also joins this line north of Foxton, with the potential to link these towns with Bedford and Oxford. It is also close to the new Biomedical Campus at Cambridge South, and the line passes through the new station being built there.
According to my research there is the potential for approximately 10,000 homes in the undeveloped land around Ashwell & Morden station alone. It is unencumbered by green belt designation nor is it covered by ecological land protections. The developable area around the station totals approximately 170ha within an 800m radius, and with an average density of just 60dph this would deliver more than 10,000 homes.
There is further potential for urban extensions to other villages along the line. Shepreth could accommodate 7,200 homes through a northern expansion of the settlement (the station itself separates the town from the countryside). 2,800 homes could be built through infill and enlargement of Meldreth.
Foxton straddles the boundary of Cambridge’s southern green belt yet has the capacity for 6,800 homes around a station that is largely surrounded by open fields. Together, the areas around these stations could accommodate at least 27,000 homes—considerably more, if the radius was expanded slightly further into the countryside.
The proposition becomes more attractive when one starts to think of these stations not as individual settlements but as a single entity. The potential journey time from Ashwell & Morden to Foxton is no longer than 16 minutes, meaning that a series of smaller towns, each with a population of some 40 to 50 thousand, could support significant new social infrastructure: several new primary schools in each location, with a new secondary school at Ashwell & Morden, and perhaps a second a Shepreth.
A new Development Corporation, structured along the railway line rather than around a single settlement, could coordinate physical and social infrastructure in the appropriate locations, and produce a masterplan and design codes to lock in placemaking and quality objectives. The Corporation would adopt planning powers to ensure that delivery and quality objectives are met. With the exception of a small part around Ashwell & Morden, all of these proposed settlement expansions fall within South Cambridgeshire District, simplifying planning powers.
The land either side of the track is mostly owned by Network Rail. With some creative thinking this could be exploited to provide cycleways linking the expanded settlements, supporting a transport modal shift away from car dependency.
Based on the assumptions set out above, the approximate capacity of each new or expanded settlement would be as follows:
| Station | Developable Area | Density at 60dph |
|---|---|---|
| Ashwell & Morden | 170ha | 10,200 homes |
| Meldreth | 47ha | 2,800 homes |
| Shepreth | 120ha | 7,200 homes |
| Foxton | 113ha | 6,800 homes |
| Total | 450ha | 27,000 homes |
There are many other examples of such stations along the railway lines that extend out from our cities where this approach to Development Corporations could be adopted too.