Help Save Northampton from a road folly and protect a rail solution corridor
The great town of Northampton deserves better. Like Bedford, despite growth over many years the town centres suffer from a problem of rising rents and mediocre footfall and spend sufficient to sustain small to medium sized business'. Congestion has informed bypasses get a string of out of town development and the congestion has just proliferated with added issue of land-use and parking conflicts facing every town like ours.
Given both the A45-M1 clogs up and Victoria Parade clogs up and London Road also clogs up, how will adding more traffic from St James' alleviate the situation? Moreover, that traffic queuing back from the junction lights emitting fumes and noise in a now, largely residential area with thinner walls to what solid brick houses withstood?
Consider this: A rail link from Northampton-Bedford is not 'pie in the sky' it is within our grasp if we act now. Already this very month we have £110 million for early completion of Oxford-Milton Keynes and Bedford with £10 million from the National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) for Bedford-Sandy-Cambridge rebuild/new build project, estimated to be delivered by 2030, some 18 years ahead, may seem a long way off, but in planning and strategic terms within Planning terms cordons of acceptability. Where do we wish Northampton to be in relation to these developments by then?
Train paths are already at a premium on the West Coast Main Line (WCML) through and south of Rugby to Bletchley. This limits scope on new flows of passenger and freight services the line can take. These constraints affect Northampton going forward. It is therefore in our view, imperative that Northampton keeps it's options open and whereas for Oxford a change of train at Milton Keynes Central may seem reasonable, to go south to come back up to Bedford before setting off East would seem less-than ideal.
A Northampton-Bedford rail link would enable direct modern, fast seamless train access to Bedford, Luton, Luton Airport Parkway as well as joining for on-wards Eastern bound services for Cambridge, Stansted and beyond and vice-versa - inward flows of footfall and spend to the town centre, sustaining it, minus the traffic and checking the impact of development and growth in a sustainable fashion.
Already an embryonic consortium was being formed to bring players together to advance the Northampton-Bedford interest and this piecemeal road link puts a block on the reopening when so much potential benefit is at stake for Northampton. The University will be a major traffic generator, it could have a station for it's students and cohortic intakes, plan-train-campus, no-nonsense, just one change, one train, one ticket and door to door seamless interfaces. All that is put at stake by this road which severs the railway corridor, is the cost really worth it?
May I ask you to think again and invest in studying the credentials of what's in it for Northampton if you put the railway idea first? You have nothing to lose at such a critical juncture or face a concoction of congestion locked-in and unsustainability for many years to come, compounding all the old niggles which the Chronicle portrays every week locked in.
Please support and work with us for nurturing this rail link and help Northampton have more options. If you want to be kept informed more please let me know. But this road link is bad for Northampton's well being and should be put on hold pending further research of what the rail link may offer please. Thank you.
Contact erta.rails6@yahoo.co.uk if you wish to support more and get involved.
The great town of Northampton deserves better. Like Bedford, despite growth over many years the town centres suffer from a problem of rising rents and mediocre footfall and spend sufficient to sustain small to medium sized business'. Congestion has informed bypasses get a string of out of town development and the congestion has just proliferated with added issue of land-use and parking conflicts facing every town like ours.
Given both the A45-M1 clogs up and Victoria Parade clogs up and London Road also clogs up, how will adding more traffic from St James' alleviate the situation? Moreover, that traffic queuing back from the junction lights emitting fumes and noise in a now, largely residential area with thinner walls to what solid brick houses withstood?
Consider this: A rail link from Northampton-Bedford is not 'pie in the sky' it is within our grasp if we act now. Already this very month we have £110 million for early completion of Oxford-Milton Keynes and Bedford with £10 million from the National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) for Bedford-Sandy-Cambridge rebuild/new build project, estimated to be delivered by 2030, some 18 years ahead, may seem a long way off, but in planning and strategic terms within Planning terms cordons of acceptability. Where do we wish Northampton to be in relation to these developments by then?
Train paths are already at a premium on the West Coast Main Line (WCML) through and south of Rugby to Bletchley. This limits scope on new flows of passenger and freight services the line can take. These constraints affect Northampton going forward. It is therefore in our view, imperative that Northampton keeps it's options open and whereas for Oxford a change of train at Milton Keynes Central may seem reasonable, to go south to come back up to Bedford before setting off East would seem less-than ideal.
A Northampton-Bedford rail link would enable direct modern, fast seamless train access to Bedford, Luton, Luton Airport Parkway as well as joining for on-wards Eastern bound services for Cambridge, Stansted and beyond and vice-versa - inward flows of footfall and spend to the town centre, sustaining it, minus the traffic and checking the impact of development and growth in a sustainable fashion.
Already an embryonic consortium was being formed to bring players together to advance the Northampton-Bedford interest and this piecemeal road link puts a block on the reopening when so much potential benefit is at stake for Northampton. The University will be a major traffic generator, it could have a station for it's students and cohortic intakes, plan-train-campus, no-nonsense, just one change, one train, one ticket and door to door seamless interfaces. All that is put at stake by this road which severs the railway corridor, is the cost really worth it?
May I ask you to think again and invest in studying the credentials of what's in it for Northampton if you put the railway idea first? You have nothing to lose at such a critical juncture or face a concoction of congestion locked-in and unsustainability for many years to come, compounding all the old niggles which the Chronicle portrays every week locked in.
Please support and work with us for nurturing this rail link and help Northampton have more options. If you want to be kept informed more please let me know. But this road link is bad for Northampton's well being and should be put on hold pending further research of what the rail link may offer please. Thank you.
Contact erta.rails6@yahoo.co.uk if you wish to support more and get involved.
No comments:
Post a Comment