EUROPEAN leaders are being urged to support a major project to improve freight rail links which will take thousands more lorries off the A14 through Suffolk.

EUROPEAN leaders are being urged to support a major project to improve freight rail links which will take thousands more lorries off the A14 through Suffolk.

Network Rail has made a bid for �69 million of European Union money towards a �100m project for the improvements to the Felixstowe to Nuneaton cross-country route.

Vital work has already been completed to upgrade the line to ensure the new 9ft 6in high cube containers can be transported without the need for special wagons.

But the largest slice of the budget is needed to carry out track works which will enable more boxes to be sent on the route, which provides access to distribution centres in the Midlands and north of England.

Conservative MEPs for the East of England, Geoffrey Van Orden, Robert Sturdy and Vicky Ford have written to the European Commission to press it to give the grant.

“We are delighted that the Network Rail have at last submitted an application to the European Commission as we have been campaigning for this for years,” said Mr Van Orden.

Mrs Ford said: “I shall be writing to all the MPs in constituencies along the railway line to get them to press the commission too.”

As part of the works, the Port of Felixstowe will spend �40m to dual four-and-a-half miles of the Felixstowe to Ipswich rail line, which will increase the number of daily trains at the port from 26 to 40.

Should the government be doing more to get containers off the roads and on to the rails? Write to Your Letters, Evening Star, 30 Lower Brook Street, Ipswich, IP4 1AN, or e-mail eveningstarletters@eveningstar.co.uk