AFTER six years of planning, work has started on rebuilding Bicester Town Station as part of the new £130m railway link to London.

Rob Brighouse, managing director of Chiltern Railways, the operators of the station, helped lay the first set of foundations for the new station, which is set to open next September.

Mr Brighouse said: “I’m a civil engineer at heart so I really enjoyed getting stuck into the work. It felt fantastic being here today. The project has been in the pipeline for a long time and it’s great to see work start.”

Bicester Town Station will connect to Oxford via the Oxford Parkway station, at Water Eaton, near Kidlington, also due to open in September.

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Mr Brighouse said: “This is an incredibly important project as not only are we improving the rail link between Oxford, Bicester and London, we are helping alleviate congestion in Oxford by building a station outside Oxford for London commuters.”

The development of the new line from Bicester to London – which will offer journeys to London Marylebone in under an hour – comes after Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg announced plans of developing Bicester as a garden city.

Chiltern Railways also wants to develop a train line connecting Oxford Parkway to proposed stations in Cowley, Blackbird Leys and the Oxford Science Park at Littlemore.

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