Welcome to the Bedfordshire Local Representatives Groups page

At East West Railway Company (EWR Co), we’re passionate about hearing what local representatives, and their communities, think about East West Rail (EWR) so we can, together, successfully build a project that will bring faster journey times, lower transport costs and ease pressure on local roads. This will bring people closer to the things that matter most – jobs, friends, and family.

We’ve set up 15 Local Representatives Groups along the route where we will deliver the East West Rail project to help local communities connect with us through their representatives. The Groups include Councillors, Parish and Town Councils and representatives from EWR Co.

This is the page for the Bedfordshire Group. The Group brings together all the Parishes and Councillors from this broad Bedfordshire area centred around the EWR alignments north of Bedford towards the East Coast Main Line, and the wider local connectivity in and out of the town.

Group meeting schedule:

Meeting #1 – Wednesday 2 March 2022 – Welcome Meeting and Introduction to the Group

Meeting #2 – Wednesday 20 April 2022 – Development Consent Order (DCO) Update, Next Steps and Process

Meeting #3 – Tuesday 7 June 2022 – Statement of Community Consultation (SOCC)

Meeting #4 – Wednesday 27 July 2022 – Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and how this relates to the DCO process, and Defining Net Zero

Meeting #5 – Thursday 29 September 2022 – Statement of Community Consultation (SoCC) – Overview of Responses Received, and The Business Case Process

Meeting #6 – Wednesday 19 October 2022 – Defining Net Zero

Meeting #7 – Wednesday 07 December 2022 – Active Travel / First Mile Last Mile

Meeting #8 – Tuesday 07 February - Traction strategy and Freight

Meeting #9 – Friday 3 March - Process for developing the Code of Construction Practice: managing environmental impacts during construction

Meeting #10 – Monday 5 June 2023 – Route Update Announcement

Meeting #11 – Thursday 25 July – Q & A

Meeting #12 – Thursday 28 September 2023 – Our approach to how we engage with you and your communities

Find out what’s happening in the Bedfordshire Group.

You can stay up to date with what’s happening in this Group by viewing the documents on the right of this page which include agendas, meeting summary notes, Terms of Reference, maps, presentations and other reference material to support the meetings. New, relevant documents will be uploaded after each meeting.

You can also find out more about the Local Representatives Groups and access other Groups' pages on our Local Representatives Groups welcome page.