Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent assessment his Department has made of the impact of the freight bottleneck at (a) Bramley in Hampshire and (b) along the Basingstoke to Reading branch line.

A major upgrade to transport more freight by rail to and from Southampton Port unlocking more capacity at the country’s second busiest container port was completed last year. Network Rail are considering the challenges for freight on the corridor with infrastructure assessments taking place at Basingstoke which is a follow up piece of work to the joint Network Rail/National Highways Solent to Midlands study. The output of this work could inform a decision to initiate further schemes into the Rail Network Enhancements Pipeline (RNEP).