A petition urging the government to consider an alternative rail route between Bedford and Cambridge has amassed more than 1,000 signatures.

CamBedRailRoad has come up with an alternative route to the current ‘C-corridor’, which runs through land near Sandy and through Shepreth.

The group’s route instead serves new developments at Bedford Wixams, Cambourne and Northstowe – and they launched the petition on Tuesday last week.

It reads: “We request that the Department of Transport ensures that the proposal for a northern route is fairly evaluated at the same time and to the same degree as alternative routes proposed.”

Chairman Sebastian Kindersley said: “CBRR is incredibly grateful for the support of those who have signed our petition so far. We have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get this key part of local infrastructure right and the more support we can show, the better.”

To view the petition, go to https://www.change.org/p/secretary-of-state-for-transport-northern-rail-route-should-be-evaluated-equally-alongside-ewr-s-current-proposals-d7bd2f1f-7675-41de-b072-161074cfdeef