A NEW high speed Rail link between Banbury and London is expected to boost house prices throughout north Oxfordshire.

The new 100mph service is expected to cut the journey time to the capital to just 67 minutes and reduce it further still within a year.

The improved service is the latest boost to the boom in prosperity in the north of the county.

Last week Banbury was named as the most prosperous town for business in Britain with more than 90 per cent of companies making a profit.

Much of the credit was put on the M40 and rail service.

James Borradaile, of FPD Savills at Banbury, said the improvements to the train service would help lift the housing market across the range.

He said: "There is a big difference between the existing journey time of about an hour and a half to London and a time of about an hour.

"That will bring Banbury into viable commuter land and it will have an effect everywhere within a 20 minute to half-hour drive of Banbury.

With trains it is a case of no-one believes it until it happens, but once the service is up and running I expect to see the effect quite quickly.

"Everyone expected the M40 to lift property prices, but of course just as the M40 extension opened the property slump came along, so we did not see the M40 effect until later."

On Sunday Chiltern Railways will introduce the first stage of a 100mph train service from London via Bicester and Banbury to Leamington Spa, Warwick, Solihull and Birmingham. Overnight this will extend the horizon for commuters.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.