Rail minister Huw Merriman tours Cambridge South and Cambridge Biomedical Campus

Visiting rail minister Huw Merriman described the timescale for delivering Cambridge South station as “very ambitious” but was confident it will open in 2025.

He toured the site and the Cambridge Biomedical Campus, including the Victor Phillip Dahdaleh Heart and Lung Research Institute (HLRI), on the day the government confirmed the £211m funding for the station.

“We’ve been to the station site,” he told the Cambridge Independent at the institute, “where I stood on the platform that will take people further south if that’s where they want to go, and then looked over the other side of the track and saw where the other platforms will go to take people to Stansted, to Birmingham and other parts of the country, so it’s incredibly exciting.

“It’s very ambitious in terms of investment but also the timescales, so everyone is going to have to work really really hard to get this delivered by 2025, but we’re all confident we can do so.”

Cambridge South is due to be a stop on the new East West Rail line, but the station is of critical importance in its own right.

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“By 2025, there will be a four-platform station here on Cambridge Biomedical Campus to deliver a workforce so that this campus can thrive,” said Mr Merriman.

“But, as part of that vision, we very much see East West Rail as adding to that. The workforce is needed from the likes of Bedford and other parts to make this place function, and we know that there are huge challenges with traffic and congestion in Cambridge which keeps the workforce away.

“If Cambridge is going to continue to thrive to take on other parts of the globe – the likes of Harvard, Boston, etc, as well as south-east Asia – then we need to find transport solutions that get people to work. I see both Cambridge South and East West Rail as delivering those ambitions.”

With Cambridge facing major pressures on its environment, including acute water problems, does the minister think East West Rail fits in with the government’s green ambitions?

“Yes it does, because the idea that Cambridge city centre can provide its own workforce for something as magnificent as this current campus – let alone the ambitions that the campus team has to build up here – is just not sustainable, not least the property prices that that workforce would be expected to pay,” said Mr Merriman.

The new station and East West Rail line will enable the workforce to live in more affordable areas, he pointed out, while accessing jobs on the campus, where tens of thousands are employed and further expansion is expected.

“What will happen is that if these institutions can’t source their workforce? They’ll end up moving not just somewhere in the UK but outside of the country and we’ll lose our brightest, so the aim of East West Rail is to deliver a workforce from slightly further afield into Cambridge in a sustainable, decarbonised, manner,” said Mr Merriman, who hinted the first trains to use the East West Rail line may yet be able to use greener power.

“In terms of it starting with diesel, of course we want to open the first phase of East West Rail – from Oxford to Bletchley – by 2025, so of course we’re having to use pre-existing trains to do that, but the aim is to look more towards the electrification in the future, and also biomodes which are also coming on-stream,” he said.

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Meanwhile, the research institutes that can be found on the campus are eagerly awaiting an update on the UK rejoining Horizon, the EU’s key funding programme for research and innovation, which has been complicated by Brexit.

“Those issues will be worked out with our partners in Europe, and I think you only need to see the Windsor Framework that was put together by the Prime Minister to show that our relations with our European partners are now stronger than they have been for some time, so I’m very confident that we will continue to have those accords and partners across European science and research and development, and I expect some news on that particular [Horizon] programme at some point.

“I can’t give specific dates because that’s not my portfolio. That will be for other parts of the government to work on, but rest assured that our partnership with our European friends is stronger than it has been for some time and that will continue to ensure that our scientific community thrives when it comes to research and development.

“When I come and see projects like this I think: ‘What’s not to like?’”

Also at the launch was Jamie Burles, managing director of Greater Anglia, who daid the journey time between Cambridge South and the main Cambridge station willbe just three minutes – one of the shortest on the network.

“Cambridge to Cambridge North is pretty short as well! It’s about the same,” noted Jamie, adding that there will be no car parking on the station site itself.

“There will be a drop-off point, and disabled/blue badge parking, but there isn’t going to be a large car park because this is a station that is designed for people to be using it to access this site and using it to exit this site as well. There will be a very large cycle park here and clearly we’re just off the busway cycle path, so it’s very large cycle storage space and good walking links.

“The bulk of the usage is going to be people commuting in and out of the Biomedical Campus.”