Rail stations aren’t always suitable for extra housing

Your report on proposed planning rules designed to focus new housing around ‘commuter hubs’ is an interesting and welcome policy initiative (‘Planning rules focus new housing at stations’ LTT 08 Jan). Can I express the hope that they might also be used to discourage building at inappropriate locations?

Developers have cottoned on to the proximity of a station as a brownie point for their proposals, planning authorities regard this with favour because it sounds ‘sustainable’ and Network Rail appears disinclined to be negative. However in at least two cases in East Anglia (Salhouse, on the Norwich-Sheringham line, and Westerfield, near Ipswich, at the junction of the Ipswich-Lowestoft and Ipswich-Felixstowe lines) this has resulted in schemes where the rail service is unlikely to be good enough relative to the road network to attract a significant number of users, where even if it did so the extra users would only be travelling short distances (thus either causing overcrowding or leaving empty seats for many more miles), and where longer-distance travellers would experience extended journey times. 

Dialogue between local authorities and the rail industry needs to be much more honest about what rail is good at and what it is not suitable for.