Northampton: Join ERTA and be part of the answer to alternatives to a roads only agenda!

Ref: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-59687370

Our concern ‘as ever’ is the blight this could, without being made to bridge the former Northampton-Market Harborough railway course (cost) would inflict locked-in blight, ruination of the rail reopening and compound congestion further with zero other options. Trams don’t handle lorry-load freight! We need to align England's Economic Heartland’s (EEH) corridor studies with reality now! There is currently a gap which needs railing now.

There is a gap between what is espoused and what our agenda is. Do we abandon and let go and 10 years’ time see more of the same exacerbated or do we think of how we can move their focuses towards more of what we wish for? I need ERTA and public on-side and to give me feedback and help advance our causes. Otherwise, it is all jobs for the professionals, more of the same and futility. This, in a Climate Emergency, diminutive resources and demand-supply increases. Unless mechanisms are put in place to address this at grassroots upwards,

I fail to see any aggregate gains beyond what East-West Rail facilitates and sorting the Bedford Midland bottleneck is not going to be plain sailing I suspect. Timescales differ and complacency on the one hand versus it's all over on the other and we're somewhere between those 2 extremes? Let me know what you think best if you wish and help be part of the solution by getting a programme of Skype meetings underway. I want to see a growing ERTA pulling together to address this credibly and meaningfully, I can't do it solo. I am neither a Revolutionary or a Preservationist per se, but believe moderate gains can be made and the system should service that in the greater and national good interest.

My question rhetorically is how it translates to specific schemes and reopening agendas. Why spend £millions more bypassing an urban area when for want of lesser £millions, a Level Crossing here and there where land use does not lend to bridges or underpasses could be done for want of political will and a little pragmatism? To join our free email loop, please send requests to richard.erta@gmail.com

We believe development and roads x roads and infill development is the wrong way to go and is unsustainable x nationwide of principle and policy-action outcomes. What we need is a new agenda following the rhetoric of COP26 and aftermath to inform policy and actions commensurate with switching from road based planning and assumptions to fostering more people and goods by rail nationwide. Rail routes need protecting, green corridors need widening and switching of the £41 billion new roads funds to new local, conventional rails instead, needs to be the New Year Resolution of Government downwards and local grassroots upwards. Christmas and holiday months (December and August) are usually times when amidst the distractions of other things, bad news or controversial policy agendas are rolled out sadly. As campaigners we need to be vigilant. 

Please write to local MP's in Northampton and along the Northampton-Market Harborough Corridor/search 

https://members.parliament.uk/members/commons and write/email in support of protecting a viable rail link corridor with lands for deviations where any blockages exist. Unless this principle is followed in Northampton and elsewhere, we are in a terrible state of inertia and destructives agendas with the built environment being mis-applied. We need to rebalance with rail more and welcome support, expressed in joining ERTA: https://ertarail.co.uk/

Further reading: Save land, re-rail not roads! https://www.westnorthants.gov.uk/news/cabinet-consider-ps20-million-funding-bid-north-west-relief-road