Thurrock Gazette - Grays, Purfleet, Tilbury, Orsett, Stanford, Lakeside and Thurrock borough news

Ongar: Rail chief defends £1m sale plan

From the archive, first published Thursday 28th Sep 2000.

The chairman of the Epping Ongar Railway company has this week defended his plans to sell off surplus land worth as much as £1millon an acre at Ongar station.

Bill Camplisson's comments come as the October 1 deadline for the reintroduction of a rail service looms this Sunday, with EOR having already publicly stated that no trains will run on the line this year.

Said Mr Camplisson: "We have been accused of wanting to sell off the station at Ongar and North Weald. That simply isn't true.

"Between us, London Underground and ourselves own about three acres of land that has nothing to do with the operation of the railway. London Underground never used it and it hasn't been used for railway purposes for 50 years."

Mr Camplisson explained that the purpose of selling the land - of which he said EOR owned around one and a half acres - would be to raise money to meet the cost of the £500,000 interchange at Epping.

And he confirmed that he had asked London Underground to approach the transport minister Keith Hill to request that the terms of the line's 1998 sale agreement be altered to allow the land to be sold.

But this latest move drew fire from Ongar Railway Preservation Society chairman John Glover.

Mr Glover, who as ORPS chairman had previously offered to work with EOR to resolve the £450,000 shortfall over the Epping interchange, said: "Mr Camplisson's announcement came as a great sadness. But at last he is beginning to reveal what EOR's real plan is.

"They are now looking for a deadline extension of a year, but this seems to be nothing more than a time-wasting exercise."

According to Mr Glover, were the land to be sold off along with planning permission for residential development it could fetch as much as £1million pounds an acre.

EOR directors have previously stated that they are prevented by the contract from disposing of any railway land until a commuter service has been introduced to the satisfaction of London Underground.

Speaking at a meeting of the district council's transport committee on September 18, the district head of planning Ivan Le Gallais noted that unless it had first operated a railway service, EOR was prevented from disposing of any surplus land for non-railway purposes before December 31, 2004.

Commenting on what would happen if the company failed to meet its October 1 deadline he said: "This will trigger a process whereby the line is offered for sale to London Underground, Essex County Council and Epping Forest District Council.

But he added: "It may be that this deadline is extended if successful implementation of a rail service seems possible in the foreseeable future."

Yesterday (Wednesday), EOR directors were still waiting to hear from the government whether the deadline will be further extended.

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.

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