Monorail link idea for site
Would join with East Mids Parkway
AN MP has called for a monorail service to improve the number of passengers taking advantage of an underused Midland Mainline railway station.
East Midlands Parkway was opened to provide a link between the Leicester and Loughborough to Nottingham line and East Midlands Airport.
However it has been poorly used over the years with passengers having to get a taxi or book a shuttle bus between the station and airport.
With questions now being asked about the future of HS2, north west Leicestershire Tory MP Andrew Bridgen is suggesting up to £200m be spent on a monorail between the two - and maybe even further afield.
He said with the huge warehousing developments going up on the border of Leicestershire, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, it was critical to get more people out of their cars.
Thousands of jobs have been created at the airport and neighbouring Pegasus Business Park, which includes major UPS, DHL and Royal Mail operations.
Thousands more are being created at the £700m East Midlands Gateway logistics park being built on a vast site just to the north.
Mr Bridgen, a longstanding opponent of HS2, said: “A hundred thousand people fly out of the airport every week and the majority of them get there by car.
“Ten thousand jobs will be created at East Midlands Gateway, and most of those people will get there by car.
“Eight thousand five hundred people work at the airport and they mainly get there by car.
“The roads will struggle to cope. We will end up being strangled by our own success.
“The number of new jobs at East Midlands Gateway is 15 times the number of unemployed people in the area, so it’s reasonable to assume people will have to come from outside the area.
“There needs to be an alternative so more people can get to the airport by train, whether that’s from Derby, Nottingham or Leicester.
“We need a light railway or a monorail - something like what they have at Birmingham Airport - which would provide a quick means of getting from the railway station to the airport.
“I am convinced it would be popular and open up huge opportunities to people who don’t have a car.”
Mr Bridgen said the project would be expensive - he estimates potentially £200m - because the route would have to cross the River Soar and the M1, and would need to be tunnelled as it approached the airport.
But he argued it could be funded by scrapping the £56 billion HS2 rail project and diverting some of the savings.
Management at East Midlands Airport have said they want to double passenger numbers by 10m a year within 20 years or less.
The airport also hopes to triple freight shipments to one million tonnes a year within 10-20 years.
Airport managing director Karen Smart has previously called for better rail connectivity serving East Midlands Parkway, in order to make more of the underused station.