To meet the expected growth in rail traffic the Welwyn Bottleneck needs to be widened. Planning for this project started in 1997. To this end Railtrack and consulting Engineers Ove Arup and Partners came up with the following 10 options.
Each option was carefully considered and it's cost, impact on the existing service structure and discussions with the Environmental Agency and English Heritage were completed option W7 was then decided upon.
This option was then assessed in even greater detail to give a further three sub options
Once the option had been decided the plans were announced to the general public. This involved a letter and leaflet mailed to households along the route from Welwyn to Stevenage. Then a public exhibition was held in Welwyn village for two weeks.