ERTA is seeking more members and volunteers and
even as we have grown, still need a lot of diverse skills, time and talent
geographically and locally flexible to cover our front lines and commitments.
One need we have is for a single or pool of talent to inform website
development.
All enquiries or offers to my colleague Mr Simon
Barber: T. 0208 940 4399,
E. simon4barber@gmail.com You can keep abreast of
our main thrusts via our Blogspot which is updated regularly https://ertarailvolunteer.blogspot.co.uk/
In Bedford the vested interest of popularism, vote
catching and London centricity regards the calls by us for Bedford-Northampton
and even East-West Rail as periphery and non-accommodation in even more than a
cursory glance relegates to the side-lines ERTA and it's fight for the majority
of less well-off people disenfranchised from London commuting and who want and
need diversification, wider options and to be able to succinctly choose
'other'.
What our friends who are dismissive need to realise
that is if we open Bedford-Northampton we enable 2 trains per hour to clear
tracks off Bedford Midland Station, allowing other trains to call. Likewise,
2-3 or more will go on to Corby. But I doubt if 5 trains per hour will all go
to Corby? Midland Main Line fasts will call if capacity and business warrant it
to make it appealing - any competition for platform access contrast easier for
more like Luton Airport and Bedford could lose out. Stations north of Bedford -
something our predecessor organisations called for over 30 years of silence,
are now being included along with development of 000's of houses but direct
live in countryside, make it urbanised, a shop maybe and a station for London
and not much else is the way it is. Wixams is the model forerunner of new
development on the cheap contrast proper towns and villages with comprehensive
modern, civilised services from public lavatories to post offices, to services,
health and so on. Section 106 gets you a few metres of cycle path and a school,
maybe a community centre for bad times and elections, the Church is privatised
and left to find its own way to establish a base - mission and pastoral
support. Reality is that life can be more complex and these dumping of
dwellings into a vacuum seems naive and a recipe for distress and lostness?
So, our rail schemes are relevant to connect people
and give options outside just a London focus or "I'm an academic who wants
to commute to X location without changing" translating to a whole plank of
a campaign purported to represent many others. Yes we need fast services up and
down the Midland Main Line and yes Government approach is chaotic, inadequate
and unfair but we have to have a joined up, coherent, cohesive, integrated and
diverse plans for the whole of what is needed, not just partisan or parochial
interests vying akin to a creche for individual attention x however many there
are relative to micro-managing civil servants at the Department for Transport
who themselves are under the Treasury and it - a seemingly unknown quantity for
power, reach, range and where does the buck stop, not Theresa May surely?!
ERTA continues to be a still small voice and seeks
to relate that it is in Midland Main Line interests to have
Bedford-Northampton, it is in Milton Keynes' interests to support
Bedford-Northampton and it is definitely in Northampton's interest to be linked
to Midland Main Line, Bedford, Luton Airport and East-West Rail at Bedford via
Olney. If only they all realised, bought into that and worked with us, we could
unitedly pull for a better Bedford and sustainable transport future to build
quality jobs and prosperity not austerity. Currently Bedford, I feel is being
systematically marginalised, it has a caring, retail, warehouse, coffee shop
and charity sector economy and needs to raise its game on quality, quantity and
the redistribution of wealth to make a more inclusive and even-handed society.
Please support us and help us. Our events are open to all and your support may encourage others to snowball our ideas towards those who have the means and ways to make a go of things. Thank you.
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