OXFORDSHIRE needs an East-West railway if it is to achieve its ambition to create 100,000 more jobs and 100,000 more homes, according to the county’s newly formed Local Enterprise Partnership.

Now Oxford City Council has said that it would back a £5m pilot scheme to assess the feasibility of building a multi-million pound link through Reading, Oxford, Bicester, Milton Keynes, and Bedford, together with a branch to Aylesbury.

Dr Martin Dare-Edwards, chairman of the Oxfordshire LEP, said Oxford City Council could pay up to £100,000 towards the study.

He added: “A bid has been submitted to the Regional Growth Fund for £4m.

“To make a bid you need a contracting partner and in this case that contracting partner is Buckinghamshire County Council.

“But if the £4m is forthcoming we will still need to raise another £1m — and that will come from Aylesbury Vale Council, Oxford City Council, Milton Keynes Council, and Bedford Borough Council.”

The Oxford city councillor with responsibility for city development, Colin Cook, told The Oxford Times: “The exact split of how much each council would chip in has not yet been decided.

“But we certainly support the bid in principle.”

The £5m from the Regional Growth Fund and the local authorities would finance a report to be delivered during 2013.

Money to build the line — phase one of an ambitious scheme to eventually link Oxford and Cambridge — would come from a 50-50 Public Private Finance Initiative.

Oxfordshire was last year successful in establishing its own Oxfordshire LEP — which receives no funding from the Government and only office space and support from the county council.

Dr Dare-Edwards admitted that raising money for the project from the regional fund will be difficult.

He said: “Priority, I suspect, will go to bids from places north of Birmingham, even though Oxfordshire is losing so many jobs in the public sector.

“But we contend that if Oxfordshire is to stay at the cutting edge of the UK economy we need this link to help generate houses and jobs.”

Meanwhile, the campaign group Stop HS2 is mobilising against the 225 mph London-Birmingham high-speed train, which according to Department of Transport plans, will pass through the north of Oxfordshire along the Northamptonshire border near Brackley.

The group will hold a Stop H2 Convention at Stoneleigh Park in Warwickshire on February 19.

The proposed £17.8bn HS2 trains will only stop at Euston, Old Oak Common, Birmingham Airport, and Curzon Street in Birmingham.

Stop HS2 spokesman Joe Rukin said: “Oxfordshire will get the pain but not the gain.”

However, Dr Dare-Edwards said: “Oxfordshire should accept the HS2 for the nation’s greater good. That’s democracy.”