Local Councils need to form alliances to ensure joined up strategy here, than dumping the problem to quangos who make for good new stories but it is actions on the ground which add up to forming the agenda we need let also wish for. 1.5 hours commuting time to Northampton is dreadful for a commute half the distance of London and where jobs are to be had and vice versa them commuting to all stations on an integrated Thameslink to Luton Airport for example. Bedford-Cambridge now looks like going out to Willington, turning north easterly across the river, taking the south bank post Barford Road, avoiding Blunham, serving a new station + settlement somewhere at Tempsford and then alongside ECML/crossing over up or down and under/over somehow to Sandy. East of Sandy, I think it is Shepreth, as getting to and post Chesterton is problematic and into Cambridge via Trumpington equally.
If HS2-3 the bulldozers just turn up and that is it, any conventional line reopening/rebuild and it is a different ball game of light touch approaches and deferring any blight or litigation as much as expedient. Work on ECML interaction and maybe a new arrangement at Shepreth (existing) junction may unlock capacity on the tracks issues and cater for the east of Fulbourn option. But good as it is, all too slow, too little , too late for 3 generations. The short of it all is it was an error to close it in the first place but like now, Government strapped for cash and HS2 the exception is a different pot apparently. But tolling roads and using some of that money for a rolling programme of reopenings maybe a domestic option worth considering. Blunham is problematic not insurmountable. Visual impact is a consideration and as long as the railway can equal that of the 1962 DMU of 55 minutes Bedford-Cambridge commute for half the price and distance, that commute - given Cambridge house prices and Bedford's need for diversity of options for more local commutes, would bode well for a new generation seeking work and commuting and living within a reasonable distance of the two catchment areas.
But the Stevenage-East Beds-Bedford and Peterborough-St Neots-Bedford angles should not be lost on us either. It is all sustainable footfall and spend minus the menace and parking demand of car legs. Pandering to the car may be popular, but carried land use issues for parking in ancient built urban areas - a common allocation dilemma when competing demands for nearby employment and access using walking, cycling and public transport - lifestyle choices we should environmentally be nurturing. Good radial cycle lanes to Clapham, Bromham and Kempston for example, but try cycling across between those places 'not via central Bedford' and you're stuck especially at 6.30pm in a wet winter's evening!
Can our Council get a plan for addressing that, maybe a new bridge between Great Denham and Hill Grounds and a river side cycle cum pedestrian walk-way off road with porous gravel for similar/smooth edged wood chippings surface for example. The wood absorbs moisture and avoids mud baths. If the Canal project were to navigate with canal sections to Wolverton via Clapham and Pavenham with a new Blisworth Tunnel style coming out near Carlton, that would probably be easier and less problematic than ziz zagging between M1 and Brogborough then hoised over 40' and the weaving through various use lakes to reach Kempston plan? Just think what more navigation could do for the pub trade in the villages it could serve? They can DIY at their leisure and celebrate incremental land marks.
Brogborough seems problematic to a layman and hugely expensive. Just think of what a Falkirk Wheel might look like stuck on top of Brogborough Hill?! I think we need to think again. It has been suggested that we have rowing up until the railway bridges and punting from Queen's Park to Kempston Mill with a coffee shop and facilities beside the river.
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