Joining the dots – and making a real difference to people’s lives

To start with what we’ve said many times before – and to state the obvious – a lack of direct rail services between Coventry and Leicester/Nottingham is a major gap in our region’s transport network. Because the current rail service is slow and indirect, most people choose to travel by car, or, of course, decide not to travel at all if this option exists.

We have a plan, with strong political support, to remedy this, which introduces a regular, fast, direct rail service between the three cities. With a new rail journey time of around 30 minutes from Coventry to Leicester (currently around an hour), we go from being very unappealing compared to what you’d achieve in your car to being the fastest option by a long way. We recently launched our business case to the Government to allow us to move forward with the design and delivery of the scheme.

But why do we want to do this? While talking about improving transport understandably resonates with the public, it is understood that transport is the ‘means’ and not the ‘end.’ In which case, what is the ‘end’? Our plans would allow transformational levels of economic growth to be unlocked in the cities, giving more people great access to well-paid jobs through increased productivity. We also provide better access to ‘opportunity,’ which means accessing anything, be it a workplace, college, school, leisure, or healthcare facility. We also provide the means for more freight to move by rail, helping us move freight to where it is needed in the most environmentally friendly way possible. There are more reasons, of course, but these are just some highlights.

To pick on the access to opportunity point a little further, while this may sound like jargon, it really isn’t, and we have some new evidence to support this. We recently commissioned research into the benefits to the healthcare sector, and after engaging with local Integrated Care Boards, NHS Trusts and other stakeholders, it is abundantly clear that the benefits of our direct rail link would be significant for the NHS, its staff, patients and their families. This much is perhaps no surprise, for those familiar with accessing healthcare in those areas today, but some of the individual stories really hit home, including cases of cancer patients having to pay for taxis between two cities, as well as hotel stays, so that they could access weekly chemotherapy. So, a real case of transport not providing access to opportunity, sadly.

To bang the drum one last time. We have a clear problem in this part of the region – the rail offering is poor – but we have a clear proposal to overcome this with a credible and widely supported business case. We have the strategic rationale for doing so, and as described here, with each piece of research we do, we realise quite how wide-reaching this strategic rationale is and the impact it could have on people’s day to day lives. What’s the missing ingredient currently? Sadly, it’s funding for the next stage, so please join us in supporting this improvement and making the case to Government for it to be funded as quickly as possible.

Andy Clark is the Interim Head of Rail at Midlands Connect.