Fears over Islip rail service (From The Oxford Times)

Fears over Islip rail service

3:47pm Wednesday 10th November 2010 in News

ISLIP station, part of an award-winning rail link, will get its services cut if plans for a route from Oxford to London via Bicester get the go-ahead.

Chiltern Railways plans to spend £250m to upgrade the track to allow two trains to run from Oxford to London Marylebone every hour.

But the plans cut the number of trains from Islip to Oxford and Bicester from 11 to eight per day.

Last month, the Oxford to Bicester link, run by First Great Western and subsidised by Oxfordshire County Council, took a top prize at the Community Rail Awards for last year’s three-day launch promotion.

There was a 32 per cent rise in passengers boarding from Islip, with numbers rising from 14,929 to 19,833 in the first nine months of last year after the service was increased from seven to 11 trains a day.

Islip resident Dr Ian East, chairman of the Oxford-Bicester Rail Action Group, said the move would hit people from nearby villages.

He said: “Chiltern have offered eight, but we want the 11 we have at the moment. Stopping at Islip only adds a couple of minutes to the timetable to and from London.”

Although services would be cut from Islip, Chiltern would increase the number of trains from Bicester to Oxford from 11 to 36 a day.

Chiltern also plans to build a new station at Water Eaton for 36 trains a day.

The firm will take over the service in 2013 if it is successful at a nine-week public inquiry in Oxford.

Islip Parish Council clerk Michael Wilkinson said: “This restricts the choice we have on trains and we won’t be able to take advantage so easily of the new services to London and we’ll lose access to Oxford and Bicester.”

Chiltern spokesman Nicola Clark said: “We believe that eight trains per day is the right level for Islip.

“The services that we will no longer be running are those currently subsidised by Oxfordshire County Council and are very lightly-used off- peak services, with two to three people boarding per train.

“Services from Islip will actually be improved, in that there will be a direct service to London. The station will have more trains than the passenger service requirement and will also have trains calling at the station on a Sunday.”