Oxfordshire MP welcomes 'further' funding for East West Rail
Olly Glover hopes EWR will "become a reality rather than an aspiration"
Last updated 12th Jun 2025
An Oxfordshire MP says he welcomes that the Government has re-confirmed support for East West Rail but also hopes it will "become a reality rather than an aspiration".
In the Spending Review, Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced a series of investment in the UK's railways.
In her speech, she told the Commons: “I have also heard the representations of ... members for Milton Keynes North, Milton Keynes Central, and Buckingham & Bletchley. And I can tell the House today, to connect Oxford and Cambridge, and to back Milton Keynes' leading tech sector, I am providing a further £2.5 billion for the continued delivery of East-West rail."
Olly Glover, Liberal Democrat MP for Didcot and Wantage, said: “It's welcome that the government has reconfirmed its support for East West Rail. It is a project that we really need that will help to connect Oxford, Milton Keynes, Bedford and Cambridge.
“Road links in those areas are not good. There is no longer a direct coach between Oxford and Cambridge, it takes a long time, and it’s expensive going by train via London.
“However, it is a project that has been announced and re-announced a very large number of times and I'm just really hoping we will see real action to make this project a reality rather than an aspiration.”
He also says, “I used to work for East West Rail about five or six years ago and the slight frustration is that they are consulting and deciding on things they were consulting on five or six years ago”.
Mr Glover added: “It's been talked about for a very, very long time… we do this quite a lot in the UK, we talk excitedly about these projects, but we also need to make sure that we're actually moving them forward and making those key decisions and doing them in the right way.”