Reopened rail lines plan to tackle housing crisis

Reopening rail lines by reversing the Beeching cuts of the Sixties will help tackle the housing crisis, Chris Grayling has claimed.

The Transport Secretary, who was in Bletchley, Oxon, to unveil plans for a cross country train route from Oxford to Cambridge, said new plans to put passenger routes on freight lines and open lines axed in the 1960s would “unlock housing opportunities”.

He said: “We have major cities with freight lines through their suburbs that carry the occasional freight train and no passenger trains… why wouldn’t you put passenger trains on those routes so commuters can get off the roads and on to rail?”