Midlands Connect has published a report claiming ‘massive’ benefits to major universities in the region from a rail link between Coventry, Leicester, Nottingham.

Academics have said that the rail link would facilitate growth at the universities and help collaboration.

After explaining the benefits to freight of its plans last year, Midlands Connect has now turned its attention to higher education.

The reports writers carried out in-depth interviews with senior managers and academics at five major universities.

They all welcomed the proposals and identified benefits to their institution, staff, and student recruitment.

Midlands Connect also commissioned consumer research conducted by Censuswide, which has shown that 85% of students surveyed struggled to get to or from university because their train was delayed or they missed a connection.

Nearly 78% believed that a stronger local rail network in the Midlands would have made their university a more appealing option, and 72% said that they would be more likely to travel by rail if local services were more frequent, faster, and involved fewer changes.

Midlands Connect believes that the research “highlights the impact of better rail connections could make”. Currently, only three percent of journeys between Coventry and Leicester are made by train. The figure for journeys between Coventry and Birmingham is ten times that, at thirty percent.

A significant factor in low take-up is the average speed of train journeys: between Coventry and Leicester around thirty miles per hour, a fraction of the average speed of over one hundred miles per hour between Coventry and London.

Midlands Connect reckons that the planned rail link could reduce journey times along the route, predicting that trips from Coventry to Leicester could take thirty minutes rather than the current fifty-four, and trips from Coventry to Nottingham less than an hour.

It also plans new, direct and more frequent services from Loughborough and East Midlands Parkway to Coventry.

The plan is projected to bring benefits of over £170million to the Midlands economy.

The full report is available here on the Midlands Connect website.

Comments from academics included:

William Rossiter, Nottingham Trent University: “I think investment in the rail corridor between Coventry, Leicester and Nottingham would facilitate growth at the university. Without a doubt, it would facilitate the kind of cross university collaborations that are increasingly essential if you’re going to attract public funding for research.

“Connectivity does make a difference to the to the quality of the student experience.

“We tend to operate on quite large catchment areas, particularly for academic staff because of the need to fill roles that are very specialized. I would argue for universities, intra and interregional transport connectivity is more important than the average employer.

“While transport connections are important for students, it is also critical in supporting research collaboration across different institutions.”

Ian Dunn, Coventry University: “I think any university of our type these days is significantly a commuting institution. It’s just the way things have gone, and the pandemic has certainly accelerated those moves.”

Stephanie Whitehead at University of Warwick added there could be wellbeing benefits too saying: “Anything that reduces that travel time and makes it easier for staff to get here would be good for wellbeing of the faculty.”

William Wells, University of Leicester: “The poor quality of West-East transport links is having a negative impact on the labour market. Even in professional and senior researcher roles it is unreasonable to expect to be able to recruit from the West Midlands -unless you are prepared to move house.

“Leicester and Coventry are the two largest cities in Europe that are not directly connected by a rail service. We’ve got an economic geography that just doesn’t function effectively because of our basically, broken transport links”.

Andy Clark, Integrated Transport Programme Lead at Midlands Connect, said, “Coventry and Leicester are two great cities – only a mere 20 miles apart as the crow flies. But getting a train from one to the other takes nearly an hour, and requires a change of train halfway, at Nuneaton.

“It is great to see yet more evidence that improving this link could make a massive difference, this time, to our great universities, the jewel in the crowns of the great towns and cities of the Midlands. It is also heartening to see the massive support from students for the rail upgrades; it shows what an impact we could make, not only to the economy but also to people’s quality of life too.

“We at Midlands Connect have a firm plan to do something about this and have a credible proposal to seek regular, direct, trains services not just linking Coventry and Leicester, but going through Loughborough and East Midlands Parkway to unlock the benefits of the Freeport and then continuing to Nottingham. This scheme is the definition of a win-win project.”

Shadow Rail Minister Stephen Morgan MP added: ”Labour will work with local leaders, businesses, unions and industry experts in the West Midlands to deliver a credible and transformative programme of rail and transport infrastructure investment.”