Saffron Walden is very close to Audley End so if an alignment could be identified* the distance would be so short that it could probably be justified. The town's links to other places in the area are appalling - 1bph to Cambridge and ~2bph south towards Stansted Airport and Bishop's Stortford,
via hideously indirect routes, are basically it - and yet it does have a sizeable commuting population. You need only look at the
Citi7 to Cambridge (even off-peak) to see the potential there.
Even a 2tph shuttle to Audley End would be a start, although I would hope that something better than that would be provided. There are probably 10 different ways of making such an arrangement work, although the best in my opinion - both in terms of simplicity and in terms of units required (a grand total of two, assuming services are 4-car) would be to extend the Stratford to Bishop's Stortford services, not stopping at Stansted Mountfichet, Elsenham or Newport and thus allowing both the hourly XC service and the Cambridge fasts to skip Audley End. The paths appear to exist; in fact, the times seem to work so well that the services would be due to pass at Audley End! A singled branch would be enough, although I would suggest dualling far enough from Audley End to allow to 8-car trains to pass (I don't think there's really a case for 12-car, even allowing for intermediate stops).
Most suggestions for new connections are just too difficult to justify, owing to market and/or route issues. And whilst Saffron Walden may not be the largest town in Essex, or even in this thread, to be without a station that is truly its own, its BCR must be among the best in the country.
* Leaving the West Anglia Main Line immediately north of Audley End bridge and following Walden Road etc until roughly opposite the High School seems like a sensible route, is less than two miles long, and ends up literally 400m from the High Street. See here. Even the old alignment is at least partially intact, although I can't tell from Google exactly how much of it is.
On the other hand, Maldon and especially Haverhill are probably too far.
Tell that to the pen pushers who thought a busway was the better option