FRIDAY 15 MAY: EAST WEST RAIL CONSULTATION

East West Rail have announced their ‘final route-wide’ consultation dates. For Newton Longville they are scheduled to be at Longueville Hall from 2-7pm on Friday 15 May. None of their face to face sessions run later than 7pm and the point was made in a call with them just before the Easter weekend that this is not acceptable, many people being unable to make it that early in the evening.

We have also been told that while Newton Longville/Mursley remains their preferred site for the train maintenance depot, they will not have the detail for the consultation exercise on the orientation (so whether the depot and sidings will be at the Whaddon Road or Mursley end of the site, etc.). We have again made it clear that this is unacceptable.

We hope that common sense will prevail, and will advise if there are any changes to the East West Rail consultation plan.

Outcome from Public Meeting held at Longueville Hall on Friday 6th March

Following the public meetingh the following issues have been raised with the David Hughes, the East West Rail Chief Executive from Mursley, Newton Longville and Whaddon parish councils.

The issues that there are include (but are not limited to):

• The cost and local transport impact resulting from the three road bridges and the underpass having to be rebuilt to accommodate the freight passing loops and the entrance/exit tracks from the main line and the depot. 
• The issue of drainage from the site, and where the infrastructure will be to remove the sewerage waste and non-recyclable water. Added to this, surface water run-off is currently through a Flood Zone 3 area adjacent to the nearby SGN gas depot and the railway embankment.
• The impact on local roads (including the already overstretched A421) from construction traffic (the HGVs that will be involved in the removal of 188,000 cbm of material from the site).
• The high-pressure gas pipe running the length of the site, parallel to the railway line and in between the various tracks.
• The impact on the Salden Place housing development (1,855 dwellings) which has already commenced and with the first homes occupied. There are two problems immediately identifiable here, one relating to the close proximity to the new housing and the other the potential requirement to acquire part of the residential development site (which is at the lowest point so is needed for SUDS basins).
• Ecological impact including that on the two existing CS1 biodiversity sites south of the line.
• The impact on local businesses including Lower Salden Farm and Park Manor Farm, along with the Crooked Billet public house (family members representing these spoke very powerfully on Friday).
• At the meeting it was said that work is still underway on the design, so further problems undoubtedly remain to be identified. Some of the issues mentioned above appear to have already been sufficient to dismiss other sites during the selection process. It is therefore hoped that the message that East West Rail took from Friday is that the decision on the preferred site needs to be urgently reviewed, because we do not believe that Newton Longville/Mursley would have been chosen if the issues already identified had been known last year.

It was sincerely said on Friday that our communities want East West Rail to be a success, but we are really concerned that this is not the right site for your project, or for that matter for the taxpayer who will be funding the multimillion pounds of bridge work, the redirection of the high-pressure gas main, the excavation into the hill to create the level site, etc.

On Tuesday 20/01/2026 the parish council was told by East West Rail (EWR) that Newton Longville was their preferred location for a Train Maintenance Depot (TMD) for the fleet of twenty 5-carriage discontinuous electric trains planned to operate the Oxford to Cambridge passenger services. Buckinghamshire Council, Milton Keynes City Council, our MP Callum Anderson, the landowners and Taylor Wimpey had only been advised the day before.

Comparison of proposed land take by EWR as disclosed at the public meeting on 6th March with the area approved for use as SUDS basins as part of the Salden Chase (now Salden Place) housing development.

EWR had apparently started with 36 potential sites, reducing that down to a short list of 5. From that list, Newton Longville came out as the preferred option for the train maintenance depot with the name chosen as 'Bletchley West TMD'. Buckinghamshire Council and Newton Longville Parish Council have been provided with the report which explains the methodology used and the relative scores for the short-listed options.

The layout for the site has still to be confirmed but the allocated area, which is north of the railway line to the west of Whaddon Road, appears to fall 60% within the Newton Longville parish boundary and 40% within Mursley. At the Whaddon Road end it would be just over the other side of the road from the Salden Place development and around 800 metres from the start of the 30mph speed limit zone coming into the village.

So far EWR have provided two possible layouts for the TMD, but stress that there are other options within the same area so the design has still to be finalised. As below, Layout 1 puts the majority of the facilities close to Whaddon Road with the access track coming in from the west (Winslow end). Layout 2 is almost a mirror image, with the depot building and sidings at the Mursley end and the access from the east (Bletchley end).

The TMD would be used for the servicing, cleaning and stabling of the 120 metre-long trains. As described in the EWR fact sheet below, the main depot building is anticipated to be 200 metres long x 50 metres wide x 10 metres high. There would be facilities to do heavy maintenance, including a wheel shop. Other facilities include train wash equipment, a traction power substation, office accommodation and car parking, plus a security gate house.

The plans also include two passing loops (one eastbound and one westbound) for diesel-hauled freight trains. These passing loops will allow faster services on the line to pass the slower moving freight trains.

EWR are saying that they foresee 100 jobs being linked to this depot, but it is unclear how many of these would be new positions and how many would be transfers in frim other locations (e.g. the current Bletchley TMD which is designated to maintain the diesel passenger trains which are initially going to be running passenger services along the line).

As stated in the EWR information sheet above, approval for this development will come from the Secretary of State for Transport in the form of a Development Consent Order (DCO), and that process is expected to take three years. The Government's Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 has changed the way major projects like EWR engage with the public during the planning process. What that exactly looks like has still to be confirmed, but we understand that EWR will still be putting their plans through a formal public consultation process.

What EWR referred to as 'Design Update' sessions took place in Bletchley on the 28th and 31st of January. They have committed to providing an event in Newton Longville over the coming few weeks. This won't be the usual drop-in session, we have asked EWR to do a presentation and actually explain the what, why, where, when and how before we have a group Q&A. We will let you know via the usual channels (this website, the Pump/a leaflet, Facebook, email and notice boards) when we have the date and time. In the meantime, please consider coming to the Free Church (Bletchley Road) parish council drop-in (Thursday 5th February from 5-7pm) and the next parish council meeting (Monday 16th February 7-9pm) if you have a question or would like to let us know your views about this proposal.

Newton Longville Parish Council is working with Buckinghamshire Council to try to ensure that the interests of residents are taken into account with this rail depot proposal. We are in touch with neighbouring parish councils and also with the developers on Salden Place. We are interested in talking to landowners and others who think they will be impacted should this proposal go ahead, so if that applies to you then please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.