Hoo Development Framework

I came across this document by accident (its reference was included in a document forwarded to me by a friend for other purposes), but, as I live in Gravesham, and enjoy the Hoo Peninsular, I decided to have a look. I should explain that my background is a long career working for the railway in a variety of roles, including service and train planning. I retired some six years ago. I am very pleased to see that the importance of Chattenden Woods has finally been acknowledged by the Council. One of the things that drew my attention was the proposal for a station north of Hoo St Werburgh. My first reaction was that it would only work if there was further development from the present town out to meet the railway, which is, of course, included in the proposals (people are unlikely to move north in order to travel south and, in particular, east - to the centre of the Medway Towns). The second was that this is currently a freight-only railway, and is signalled accordingly (although the signalling was improved relatively recently, and the occasional special passenger train ventures down the line). As a single line railway, it has limited capacity (but the amount of freight north of the Cliffe aggregate terminal has dropped with the loss of intermodal traffic). It is not electrified. There would be a need for improvements to the line if a sufficiently-attractive service was to be offered. At this point, one has to consider what sort of service was to be provided (I suggest a 30 minute interval service would be the absolute minimum to attract sufficient numbers to justify the service). Would it be the intention be to provide a through service to London (if so, electrification would be highly desirable, and provision should be made for the operation of twelve-car trains - projection of Gravesend to Charing Cross services would be the obvious solution, but this would waste a lot of capacity in the trains for a significant part of their journey), or a shuttle to Gravesend, reversing in Platform 1 (which is signalled appropriately), or would a service towards the Medway Towns be preferred (the much-vaunted north-to-east curve at Hoo Junction would be essential, if the service was not to suffer an extended journey time reversing at the junction itself)? Would the journey time towards the Medway Towns be competitive? How far east would such a service run? Could it be fitted through the Rochester Bridge Junction - Gillingham bottleneck during peak times (accepting that the signalling is far less restrictive than when I was planning trains through the area!)? Would a combination of any of these options be possible or viable? Should the service be projected beyond Hoo towards Grain? Should a passing loop or terminal bay be provided at the new station to ease conflicts with the freight services? I suggest that much further work needs to be undertaken in this area before the viability of the proposed new station and any new service can be considered, and this needs to be done before the framework is signed-off. Sorry, I should have said that the type of service would dictate the type of train - which, unless it's a projection of the existing service from Gravesend, would probably require new build (or rebuild of existing) trains. It's interesting that you show a picture of a converted former tube train, some of which have diesel (no longer desirable) or battery capability - it's likely that running from Hoo Junction to Hoo St Werburgh would be easily within the range of one of these trains, with batteries charged from the third rail between Gravesend/Medway and Hoo Junction. These would not, however, be appropriate for a through service to London, because of speed and other limitations.