Interchange at Calvert

I agree with Peter Hemming that a new chord should be built to connect the Chiltern Main Line with an east-facing link towards Bletchley (Open Access, RAIL 968).

However, one should go further. At Calvert, an HS2-East West Rail station interchange should be built. This will give Buckinghamshire (along with overlapping areas) excellent connections east to west and south to north. It would also make HS2 a bit more viable and give the residents something for all the pain of the building works blighting the area.

In addition, there should also be a north/west-facing chord off what I desperately hope will be the Aylesbury link, to provide new opportunities from Aylesbury direct

to Bicester (one of the fastestgrowing regions of Oxfordshire) and onwards to Oxford.

The journey opportunities with these reasonably small-scale schemes would be enormous, opening up huge new journey opportunities across the whole of Bucks and Oxon.

It would give also HS2 some much-needed passenger flows and income, as I suspect much of it will be ditched, with all that’s going on with public finances and so on.

HS2 needs to be much more aligned to the principles of HS1. Think Ashford and Ebbsfleet: a Calvert Buckinghamshire Parkway station, along with the two additional chords, would tick all the boxes and bring massive new journey opportunities and income

into our railway.

Let’s hope our new Transport Secretary sees some sense and pushes for at least an interchange with HS2 in deepest Buckinghamshire.

Gareth Leslie, Eastbourne