Bedford-Northampton under threat as never before!

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

ERTA and it's predecessor have done sterling work for Bedford-Northampton with many arm chair critics and cynics on all sides raining against us. However the crunch cometh whereby a road scheme seeks to block the old trackbed at Northampton and a new development would take the field needed for the Handley Realignment and station at Olney. See attached for details. We have done enough. It should not be down to us alone, it is a collective issue and responsibility. We get buck passed and public pass responsibility to Councils and Councils to Government and Government to Councils and Councils to voters = you the public! It is chicken and egg and casualties are that the strategic oversight is lost, the railway is under threat from piecemeal development and enough IS enough! However there are consequences. By all means wade in and make your voices heard, but the community at large will bear the brunt stretching in a triangle box from Felixstowe-West Midlands via London and all in between. Freight and people flung to roads, roads widened slowly and new build at £billions even as Government preaches austerity and the environment, land use, conflict, parking, urban congestion worsens/diminishes. The railway is needed, it would fulfill multiple benefits and roles, locally and regionally and the regions to the nation as a whole - starts in our own back yards. Well this seeming insignificant backwater has wider repercussions. Fight the good fight, but we've done all we can at this stage. Thank you. If you want to join our loop email richard.erta@gmail.com. Touching heaven, touching earth - we need to be ready aye ready to engage both, alas it is divide and rule and chaos instead. If any wish to take a lead please do, otherwise we await to see the outcome and will judge the situation accordingly. Please read attachments and diagram which shows the pitfall we have come up against of buck passing basically and no over all responsibility/strategic consideration where it counts - to keep alive the rail interest at the heart of the strategic interest. Funny how the rail media can go on about things from seats to electrification, branch line reopenings to HS2 but Northampton, population of some 200, 000 is written off as marginal or whacky or somehow not cutting the mustard for deserving a new modern rail link to Bedford, Thameslink integration, East-West Rail to Cambridge and beyond and a rail paralell to A14-A45 interfaces which these rail links would deliver? Pluralism, randomness, commuter-London fixations based on 'today' which are inadequate, meanwhile this rail link could slip through our hands when, with a backer yet to be emergent, it could fulfill a vital role. 

Yours sincerely,

Richard Pill

ERTA

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Campaigns Coordinator, Executive Committee, Membership, Bedford Area Rep. Media Spokesperson and Newsletter Editor: Mr Richard Pill, 24c St Michaels Road, BEDFORD, MK40 2LT T. 01234 330090. E. richard.erta@gmail.com