WORK to draw up a full business case for the East West Rail link and agree local funding for the project to revive the route between Oxford, Bicester, Milton Keynes and Bedford should be complete by July, members of the East West Rail consortium heard at their recent annual meeting.

Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne said last November that the Government would back the project, subject to it being shown to be viable and a financial contribution being made by communities along the route.

This first phase of the scheme would see the existing Oxford-Bicester and Milton Keynes-Bedford passenger services linked up through the reopening of a mothballed section of track east of Bicester, which was last used by freight trains in the early 1990s.

The meeting, held in Milton Keynes, was also told that as a result of the recent progress towards implementing the initial phase of the scheme, detailed planning would start soon to identify a route for a new line from Bedford to Cambridge, replacing a section of track that was closed in the late 1960s.

The consortium also agreed to form a joint delivery board with Network Rail and the Department for Transport to oversee the work to reopen the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire section of the line.