mä~ååáåÖ=_êáÉÑ qÜÉ=^áêíê~Åâ=`çêêáÇçê ml v i b e l o ql k j OR gNQ NPN P^ t o ^v p_r o v o bpbo s l fo ^ PMQQ pq^ k t bi i j l l o hfk d =dbl o d b=sf o bpbo s l fo pq^ fk bp j l l o pq^ fk bp o bpbo s l fo p ^ PM ^ MP j OR gNP pq^ fk bp ` o q aÉÅÉãÄÉê=OMMO BOROUGH OF SPELTHORNE PLANNING BRIEF THE AIRTRACK CORRIDOR CONTENTS Page No. Preface v 1. Introduction 1 2. Overview of the Scheme 3 3. History and Alternatives 5 4. Breakdown of the Route 9 5. The Staines Chord Section 11 6. The Windsor Line Section 15 7. The Staines Moor Section 21 8. The Stanwell Moor Section 27 9. Construction Issues 30 10. Related Projects 33 Appendix A: Relevant Spelthorne Borough Local Plan Policies. Appendix B: Statement of Consultations, Representations, and the Council’s Response. ii LIST OF PLANS Facing Page 1. The Airtrack Corridor 1 2. Alternative Routes to Heathrow 5 3. The Airtrack Corridor Subdivided 9 4. Airtrack: Staines Chord Section 11 5. Airtrack: Windsor Line Section 17 6. Airtrack: The Staines Moor Section 21 7. Airtrack: The Stanwell Moor Section 27 8. Airtrack and Central Railway in Spelthorne 33 iii PREFACE The Planning Brief for the Airtrack Corridor was adopted by resolution of the Council on 12 December 2002. The document forms Supplementary Planning Guidance in support of the Spelthorne Borough Local Plan. Relevant Local Plan policies are identified in the text and reproduced in Appendix A. A statement of consultation undertaken representations received and the Council’s response to these representations is contained in Appendix B. vi 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 The Airtrack Scheme 1.1.1 Airtrack is a proposal to provide rail access to Heathrow from areas to the west and south. Connection to the existing rail network is achieved by constructing a new link from the airport to the London Waterloo line at Staines. The scheme has been promoted jointly by BAA and Railtrack. It is shown on Plan 1 and described in Section 2. 1.1.2 Consent for the scheme is proposed to be obtained by means of an order under the Transport and Works Act 1992. This will need to be supported by an Environmental Impact Assessment of the project. 1.1.3 The timetable for the scheme is affected by the timetable for Heathrow Terminal 5 into which the railway is proposed to connect. Although permission has been granted for Terminal 5 it is not expected to open before 2008. The scheme is included in the Strategic Rail Authority’s Strategic Plan for the rail network in which it is identified as a scheme for further development but for which there is unlikely to be sufficient funding or technical resources available to support implementation before 2010. The plan adds that if increased funding becomes available it may be possible to make progress more quickly and states that co-funding with BAA will have a major role to play in implementation. 1.2 Impact on Spelthorne 1.2.1 The whole of the new stretch of track, apart from the section below ground north of M25 Junction 14, is in Spelthorne. While communities over a wide area, including Spelthorne, stand to benefit from the services that could operate the great majority of the environmental impacts of the new line and its construction fall on the Borough. 1.3 Purpose of the Brief 1.3.1 The Council is aware that work is underway on developing the Airtrack scheme and this Brief has been prepared to give guidance on issues affecting Spelthorne that need to be addressed in its development. The Brief does not aim to list the national and regional policies relevant to the overall assessment of Airtrack. The Brief aims to set out the planning and environmental issues that should be examined including relevant policies, potential impacts that should be examined and potential opportunities that should be explored. 1.3.2 The Brief purposely does not express a view on the overall merits of the scheme. The Council will make a judgement on the scheme as a whole once it has seen the overall proposal in its final form. It expects the developers of Airtrack to take the provisions of the Brief into account in finalising their proposals and it will in turn take the Brief into account in its assessment. 1.4 Structure of the Brief 1.4.1 The Brief is arranged as follows:- • Section 2 contains an overview of the scheme and the main potential impacts on Spelthorne. • Section 3 outlines the history of the scheme’s development and considers alternatives. • Section 4 breaks the scheme down into sections and sections 5-8 set out the issues that need to be addressed and the potential opportunities that should be examined in each section. • Section 9 deals with specific issues raised by construction; and • Section 10 deals with the relationship with other relevant projects. 2 2. OVERVIEW OF THE SCHEME 2.1 This section describes the general form of the scheme from south to north. While there have been previous studies showing detailed alignments, both within and north of Staines, (see Section 3 below) those do not necessarily represent the final scheme. The physical works described in the Brief are those likely to be proposed but other options may come forward after further analysis and those will need to be considered by the Council as part of its formal consideration of any future Transport and Works Act proposal. 2.2 The proposed route is shown on Plan 1. It commences in Staines town centre. A new section of track is proposed that would run alongside South Street connecting the Reading and Windsor lines. North west of the junction with the Windsor line a new station could be provided to the north of the High Street close to the Iron Bridge. The SRA consider the station should be regarded as an option at this stage but Spelthorne sees the second station as essential if the Airtrack scheme goes ahead. 2.3 At the northern edge of Staines the Airtrack route turns off the Windsor line to run north across Staines Moor broadly following the route of a former railway embankment. It then continues north following the eastern side of the M25 until it reaches the Borough boundary at Junction 14 dropping below ground level and into tunnel at about this point. 2.4 North of the Borough boundary the route turns east, remaining below ground level, to enter Heathrow from the west through the Terminal 5 site. 2.5 The scheme will enable rail services to access Heathrow from the south and west and from London Waterloo all via Staines. Services are likely to run through Heathrow to connect to destinations to the north and east. 2.6 The Strategic Rail Authority advise that decisions on service pattern and frequency have not yet been made. They add that it is likely service patterns will comprise 6 to 12 trains per hour in each direction on the Airtrack route from Staines northwards. These services could operate over an 18 hour day between 6am and midnight. A proportion of these services are expected to stop at the proposed new High Street station (see para 2.2). 2.7 The scheme as so far proposed appears to give rise to potential impacts on the Borough which are examined later in this Brief. The major categories of potential impact (positive and negative) are:- • On the economy, operation and environment of Staines town centre and its immediate surroundings • On residential properties close to the Windsor line • On the Staines Moor area • On Stanwell Moor and the Green Belt north of Staines Moor 3 4 3. HISTORY OF THE SCHEME AND ALTERNATIVES 3.1 History 3.1.1 The London Waterloo line passes within 2km of Heathrow and the idea of a rail link connecting it with the airport has been attracting interest for many years. Plan 2 shows the schemes referred to in this section. 3.1.2 In the late 1960’s powers were obtained by British Rail to construct a southern rail link to Heathrow but this scheme was never built and the Underground was extended to the airport instead. 3.1.3 At the Heathrow Terminal 4 public inquiry in 1979 the option of a link to the Waterloo line was considered as a possible means of providing rail access to London. This was rejected in favour of extending the Underground to the new terminal. 3.1.4 At the Airports Inquiries in the early 1980’s the prospect of a fifth terminal at Perry Oaks to the west of Heathrow Airport was first raised. It was suggested that a rail link could be provided into the airport through the site with a connection to the south but at that time Terminal 5 was rejected as a proposal and the rail link project did not proceed. 3.1.5 A possible rail link to the south was considered again in studies in the late 1980’s that led to the construction of the Heathrow Express connecting the airport to central London. By then the concept had been taken up by a group of Southwest London authorities and, in the Heathrow Express Bill, an undertaking was given that safeguarding would be included for a southern link to connect to the Heathrow Express. The southern link promoted by the South West London authorities, currently under the SWELTRAC label, envisages a link into the airport via Terminal 4.