We need a national government initiative to save old trackbeds and deviation spaces with carrot and stick

Much talk and reports abound on the need for a better environment and discourses reach and range around it. However it is a fact (1) that exhaust from cars and other fossil fuel reliant transport - particularly road and aviation has contributed to ill-health and pollution. That pollution exacerbates any other ailment and erodes the robustness of the population alongside any deprivation elements which lock-in the divides between haves and have nots. 

The closures of the 1960's went too far and left glaring gaps in the rail network - the very alternative we need now to rebalanced public transport away from locked-in roads dependency to more people and goods going by rail. 

HS2 won't cater for freight and the default argument of it will create capacity elsewhere relies on whether it goes where the demand and flow and existing rails go or not. 

For example Southampton/Bristol to Leicester/East Midlands triangulation is problematic as you either need to go via Birmingham or London and they are at capacity already and have few orbital rail links to avoid busy central locations and passenger centric hubs. A new build Great Central from Calvert with a spur off the Oxford line could link direct to the Nuneaton-Leicester existing line for access directly not via Birmingham and London and enable new flows of passenger and freight services off existing rails.

This is but one example, another is there is no east-west rail link for 100 miles north of the North London Line to the Peterborough-Leicester-Nuneaton line. That means all traffic must go by road largely informing manipulated demand for road widening costing £billions like A421/A14/A45/A43 arteries for example and these congest around urban hubs which lack the capacity to cater for the volume demand and congestion is the result. Northampton, Milton Keynes, Bedford and Cambridge are examples as well as junctions where these roads intercept A1 like Black Cat Roundabout and M1 for example.

Choice in rail restoration terms is needed. We need Government to also implement a rail route protection arm which incentives protection of former routes to keep reopening/rebuild options alive as a contingency but also sanctions against where piecemeal planning policies throw caution to the wind, block critical routes/access and then lock-in a roads only future with all the impacts that informs including wars for oil (2), costs, health issues and mayhem generally.

The English Regional Transport Association is committed to raising these important national issues and would welcome your support to press the Government to act now in a timely manner in the wider interest please. You can find examples and more information on both of our Blogspot (scroll down) https://ertarailvolunteer.blogspot.com/ and our publicity page of our website: https://www.ertarail.com/publicity-page Please have a perusal and feel free to recommend our work to others to help us save the day on a curtain coming down amidst a lack of coherent leadership and direction in these matters and a positive will to ensure reasonable delivery and timescale can be done which reflects the need to avoid irreversible climate change impacts and inform modal shift from car, van, lorry, plane, oil dependency/fossil fuels towards re-railing, choice, balance and more off roads and back on rails, saving costs and lives as a result. Thank you.

Notes:

1. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17704116

2. file:///C:/Users/User/Downloads/Greenpeace+report+Over+a+barrel.pdf 

I attach our latest newsletter for further information. Suffice to say lines like Woodhead, Peak Rail, Keswick, York-Beverley, Harrogate-Ripon-Northallerton, Exeter-Okehampton-Tavistock-Plymouth, North Devon lines to Ilfracombe and Bideford, Guildford-Horsham-Shoreham, Bedford-Northampton, Northampton-Market Harborough and numerous others need yes, funding for studies to make the case, but alongside route protection and deviation lands also where like places Cranleigh, blockages have arisen and a deviation is required. Please help us and ensure that options are kept open, otherwise we lose them and wonder why people get disillusioned when much talk and many reports, end in expensive paper chases whilst lines 'ready to go' like Bristol-Portished remain to be given sanction for reopening. One suggestion has been, if cash is the issue besides politics, of tolling motorways and trunk roads £1 per vehicle every 15 miles across the regions and using that pot for better public transport. Another is to enable local councils to keep any Controlled Parking Zone (CPZ) money (former traffic warden roles) and be directed to ring fence it by Government to protect routes. Bedford St Johns old site and corridor down to Cardington Road for an east-west rail contingency and Brackmills-Northampton on former Bedford-Northampton route are cases in point and across the regions, other examples exist whereby if you junk the urban access, you scupper the whole railway restoration scheme. Our lists are not exhaustive, but about 500 schemes of approximately 10-20 miles of rebuild is what is required with each region getting a fair share. Otherwise modal shift is not going to happen in anything like the scale we need. It reduces things to mere talk and people daily experience 'other laws at work' making them disillusioned. You can help inform more objective hope.