Re: Making a case for a new Northampton-Bedford Rail Link Booklet
I am writing to you to let you know that this booklet is now available. It is £4.50 + £1.27 postage (UK) making a total sum of £5.77. If you order 10 copies you get them at a discount price of £4.00 each making a total cost including postage (UK) of £52.70. Payment should be made to ‘ERTA’ and sent to Richard Pill, ERTA, 24c St Michael’s Road, Bedford, MK40 2LT (01234 330090). All proceeds go to the ERTA funds to enable it to continue to advocate better public transport.
The booklet seeks to highlight key aspects the rail link would address and why it is worthy of an 11th hour act to save it from obliteration at the hands of piecemeal development which with the railway would be more sustainable. The balance between development aspirations and the wider effects and need for better public transport infrastructure (local rail) to inform a better equilibrium.
It is hoped that support for the rail link will rise as a result of the booklet being widely read and appreciated and further studies commissioned to build the case further and court Network Rail GRIP attention. It should be both integral to East-West Rail and the Luton Airport-Northampton-Coventry arc. Taking a parish pump approach, it is a useful addendum to the localism agenda suitable for libraries, archives and general reference.
I attach a poster of the front cover and quote ISBN number of 978-0-9957682-0-8
ERTA is seeking more free/low cost stalls to promote our causes and sell our meager array of booklets and magazines mainly. All events and fixtures we attend will get a listing on our website to help boost patronage if wanted. We do not have a budget for outlay so can only reciprocate in kind. For example an exchange of flyers. Please contact Simon Barber (details below) with enquiries and offers alike.
I am doing media services for ERTA in a non Executive Committee role. I am advising behind the scenes. Really would welcome more local interest in our calls for Kempston Retail Park Station and footbridge, Bedford-Northampton and indeed news for hastening East-West Rail. Our officers are keen to attend meetings and make common cause for more of what we wish for. On the matter of developments at Flitwick, our concern is the wider traffic magnet draw to a poorly configured road system. Should Flitwick have a bypass? Where should it go? Our call is for a study into how an Ampthill Station could be provided as the scope of regional draw centered on Flitwick is off M1, Milton Keynes, Olney and Wixams as well as plenty of new housing for commuters going in around Froghall Road for example joining the two towns together finally. This is happening now, Flitwick has just one access bridge over the railway and the Froghall Road is restricted width and height clearances. Please see http://ertarailvolunteer.
Only by people joining ERTA and offering to help in some shape or form can our voice be stronger and bring the powers that be to consider more seriously what we table. Some has scoffed at reopening part of the Great Central, but when one considers HS2, it would be much less cost/intrusion/impact environmentally and over a 20 year scale of growth, given M1 and West Coast Main Line are at capacity now, something has got to give.
Bedford lost Allens, Texas Instruments, London Brick, Cutler Hammer, Pre-Star, Britannia Igranic and Meltis in terms of making things and in it's place we have ratio-wise a bundle of retail/warehouse jobs, caring sector jobs and a few research and administrative jobs but swathes of public sector and civil service local offices and outlets have closed or shrunk or gone elsewhere - Milton Keynes, St Albans, Cambridge and London. To commute costs, takes time and basically one is looking at a 12 hour day away from home-life. Our town centre is ailing, welfare (and it is spent locally and immediately) is being cut and deconstructed bit by bit leaving a precarious economic and social situation. That other towns suffer the same, doesn't make it any easier when one gets people coming along suggesting getting employment is easy, again they release people to the market, they don't shoe-horn them into employment and there's a huge gap. Therefore having access to cheap, affordable, abundant and comprehensive public transport, safe segregated cycle ways and properly maintained pedestrian rights of ways is essential for smooth operations.Don't believe the myth that bus passes are hand-out subsidies as Bus 2020 The Case for the Bus Pass by Greener Journey's (www.greenerjourneys.com) says "Each £1 spent on the bus pass generates at least £2.87 in benefits." Clearly Unions, Management and Elected Representatives who rail against and begrudge filling off peak more - need to look at this report and consider whether their prejudices are ideological or factual? Shame to remove or cut a bus service when more bus passes could ensure better levels of all day usage. The off peak savings help boost spending elsewhere, so all gains.
Hope of interest.
Yours sincerely,
Richard Pill
ERTA
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