Introduction of freight services depends upon
infrastructure improvements,
but would contribute to their capital and maintenance
costs.
The CLPG welcomes the proposals of Hereford & Worcester County Council
to establish a rail based freight concentration depot at Honeybourne to
cater for fruit and vegetable traffic to and from the Vale of Evesham,
both self-generated and in the Vale’s rôle as a major distribution
site for such produce from elsewhere in the UK and Europe.
Of equal note is the interest expressed by major supermarkets and the
major freight operator, English, Welsh and Scottish Railway (EWS).
Given the predicted increases in road-borne traffic of between 36-57% (Developing an Integrated Transport Policy: Discussion Document - Department of Environment Transport and the Regions, 1997) in the next 20 years, it seems unlikely that the Cotswolds’ primary trunk route, the A44 from Oxford to Worcester, will be able to continue to cope with the Vale of Evesham fruit and vegetable traffic without major environmental damage.
Such initiatives should form part of the Cotswold Line Strategy, and the CLPG urges the new Worcestershire County Council, (the successor authority to Hereford & Worcester County Council as from April 1998) to continue to promote this proposal.
In addition to freight services relating to the Cotswolds area itself, the line may also offer a future strategic route, either in its own right or on a diversionary basis, if Railtrack and EWS’s hopes to increase freight volume by rail and fully utilise the Channel Tunnel’s potential are to be realised.