Work on new £65m station quarter may begin in weeks

Work on a city's new station quarter could start in August after £48m of funding was signed off by the government.

The works aimed to make travelling easier for the nearly five million people who use Peterborough station each year.

Andrew Pakes, Peterborough's Labour MP, said it was a "city that's been overlooked for too long", but the money could help unlock new investment. The Secretary of State for Transport, Heidi Alexander, visited the site on Wednesday and hoped the revamp would kickstart regeneration.

The Conservative mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, Paul Bristow, said the scheme had already been announced two years ago and "more action" was needed.

While visiting the station, Alexander said the site felt like it had its "back turned" on the rest of the city.

She hoped funding would unlock the opportunity for people to spend more time in the city.

Following Bristow's concerns about a lack of action on the plans, she said the previous government had made "a lot of promises about investment in public transport infrastructure but didn't have a spending review that went beyond 2024".

"We have secured that money," Alexander said.

"What I'm doing here today is to talk to local leaders about how they're gonna realise ambitions for Peterborough and the city as a whole, and understanding what the next steps are so the project is delivered as soon as possible."

The whole project was expected to cost £65m.

Nearly £48m of this was expected to come from the government's Levelling Up Fund, with the rest coming from Peterborough City Council's Towns Fund money and other partners like Network Rail.

On 13 May, the government approved the plans for a station quarter with a new railway station entrance, pedestrianised square and multi-storey car park.

Pakes said: "I'm really hopeful we will see the hoardings going up in August and work beginning to start.

"It's going to take two years for a transformation of this size, but I know people are impatient for change and want to see spades in the ground and work beginning."

Bristow said as mayor he was determined to keep the project on track as it was a "vital and overdue opportunity" to help regenerate Peterborough, and "people now rightly expect to see progress".

"The funding for Peterborough Station Quarter was first announced two years ago," he added.

"Although it was welcome to have that money confirmed last week, the time for announcements is long past. We need delivery, and spades should be in the ground later this year.

"Furthermore, I sincerely hope that no taxpayers' money was used to facilitate what has been confirmed to be a party political event."

Colette Casey, customer experience director at train operator LNER, said nearly five million people used the station.

She said the works, including new entrances, would make it easier to move around the station and prevent the "bottleneck that we sometimes see".

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