Bedfordshire Forum and other ERTA Bedfordshire focuses seeking new members and volunteers.

AGM Notice and other stuff - all welcome.
ERTA Annual General Meeting/AGM Agenda Saturday 15^th July 1pm food, 2pm business at The Swan Pub Lounge, 1 Dunstable Road, Flitwick, Bedfordshire, MK45 1HP T. 01525 754 777 e. steph@theswanfliwick.co.uk Opposite Flitwick Thameslink served railway station and with ample parking. Open to all, all welcome.
 
1.     Apologies for absence
2.     Minutes of last years AGM 2022 and matters arising
3.     Adoption of minutes: proposed                        seconder:
4.     Finance Report
5.     Membership Update
6.     Where each executive officer says what they have done in turn over the year.
7.     Motions:
a.                 Proposed that membership rises to £20 p.a. and that from annual renewal date of 31^st January per year.
Proposed:                             Seconded:
b.                Election of officers to the Executive Committee:
-                     ERTA CEO
-                     Vice Chair
-                     Additional officers: Membership, Finance/Treasurer, Others (existing/new/role or just general helpers)
-                     Proposed:                             Seconded:
-                     8. That ERTA opposes closure of booking offices: discussion. Then voted as a policy: Proposed:              Seconded:                           
-                     9. Any Other business closure of AGM and then a discussion on public transport needs around Central Bedfordshire and the narrative on an Ampthill Parkway Station:
-                     a. Consideration of the narrative paper (ask for hand-out)
-                     b. discussion pros and issues to be resolved
-                     c. business cases and funding pots – we don’t/can’t/others may
-                     d. offers to help/volunteer to assist Richard with the project
-                     e. next Bedfordshire Forum is: Wednesday 6^th September 1pm food for 2pm business at The Albion Pub, 36 Dunstable Street, Ampthill, Bedfordshire, MK45 2JT T. 01525 634 857 e. bexlane2201@gmail.com
 
End of Meeting circa 4-5pm
 
Notes:
1.     You can be a volunteer without joining, although joining gives you voting rights and full access to EC for example. https://ertarail.co.uk/become-a-member/
2.     We appreciate all help and gap-filling skills/roles/flexibility/reliability x projects, campaigning etc.
3.      At the AGM, only current members of ERTA may vote, but people are welcome to speak at the chair’s discretion.
4.     The Bedfordshire Forum currently is bi-monthly, rotating Bedford, Ampthill, Flitwick and Kempston.
5.     Just because a cause doesn’t have universal support, if the case exists or can be made, funding for more can be courted. Nothing is perfect, but endeavour can produce outcomes more akin to what we may wish for. Join us, help us and be part of the difference.
6.     We have a free email loop: richard.erta@gmail.com and requests are welcome.

7.     For readers around some of what we do, please peruse our popular Blogspot: https://ertarailvolunteer.blogspot.com/

Notes and actions from 5th July Beds Forum Meeting in Bedford:

Present: Simon Barber, David Ferguson, Richard Pill

Present

1.                 Apologies for absence: Colin Crawford, David J. Start, Leonard Lean

2.                 Explanation why we need more local rail solutions: More pro-sustainable public transport choices, rail a more fixed asset.

3.                 Retail Park Station on the Bedford-Bletchley Railway with linking foot-disabled access bridge with Kempston Southfields Estate and Orchard Street Shops. Needs a volunteer please and support: Simon to phone Mulberry Bush Pub and establish a date to meet there ‘on location’ for October. Meanwhile, as soon as date notified, Richard will instigate £50 flyers for flyers and David will do Kempston systematically pending new volunteers to take it on.

4.                 East-West Rail. We do not stand in the way of a rail link east of Bedford, however our stance is ‘east of Bedford via St John’s with new-build north of Blunham and physical arms to link with the existing north-south main line at Tempsford area (north or south of Station Road. 44, 000 houses proposed to be built and lacks amenity, middle of nowhere and would blight the rail physical linkage idea, thwarting passenger and freight business and diversity. We need people to write in support of our idea and call for it to be worked up as an alternative to Northern Route E. Action: We will follow the debate. Our stance is laid out in Newsletter No. 50.

5.                 Ampthill Parkway Station: a. needs a dedicated volunteer to recruit members and support, b. someone who spends time in the area and who may be willing to do solo-on-going leafleting. Narrative established, business cases not our forte. Time is running out. Pros and cons, but would share the load with Flitwick and enable more based on sustainable transport. The AGM will discuss the narrative paper and goals should be:

a.                 court people who can do/mentor on business cases for free/voluntarily

b.                help inform a pot for more formal commissioning of studies/case making.

c.                 Keep an open mind. The moment west of Ampthill/Midland Main Line is developed, it is lost.

6.                 Stations North of Bedford: Oakley, Sharnbrook, Irchester, Wymington, Desborough, Kibworth and a local electric shuttle on the slow lines north of Bedford to offer a seamless semi-fast service between Bedford and East Midlands/Leicester. A study is needed. Local locations for stations and getting parishes on board, establishing benefits and business case, needs a delegated volunteer with mobility, access and local knowledge who supports the idea and proposition. Desborough needs to find a location for a station and would in wider sense be part of a new Bedford-Leicester shuttle on the slow lines to feed these places into principal locations and wider connections. Electrification into Leicester and beyond must be done and pushed for. Model of stations, like Wixams Ampthill and North of Bedford.

7.                 Non-rail: That pedestrian areas have segregated cycling. That traffic free spaces are made more the norm for our town centre with better enforcement against abusers? It is time to ‘level up’ town centres with out-of-town shopping areas! A circular bus shuttle linking the main Bedford Midland Railway Station with Tavistock Street, High Street, Borough Hall/Kingsway, Prebend Street, and the railway station and for Grant Palmer bus services to loop the railway station as a part of their overall journeys? Agreed, especially a circular shuttle to and from the principal Bedford Midlands Railway Station.

8.                 A new-build/new route Bedford-Northampton rail link for direct access by rail to Birmingham and vice versa to Bedford, Cambridge, and Luton? It needs a will for a way to be done. Land needs protecting with identified corridor to enable option to be retained.

9.                 Helpers for ERTA – join, offer, negotiate, and work as a part of a team and/or solo. New route north of Olney arcingly nearer or further afield needs studying and options identified and protected. This currently not happening even as new development is.

10.            Any Other Business. Richard to keep leafleting. David to do Kempston until we get reliable others and elsewhere including intermittent on-going Ampthill and Flitwick areas. This is subject to a budget.

Meeting finished 2.35pm

Future meetings:

1.                 Date, Time, and place of next meeting: Annual General Meeting (AGM) and associated: Saturday 15^th July 1pm food, 2-3pm business and from circa 3pm a discussion on transport issues in Central Bedfordshire including the narrative on Ampthill Station. All welcome. Venue is The Swan Pub (opposite the railway station served by regular Thameslink trains). Plenty of parking as well. Address: The Swan Pub, 1 Dunstable Road, Flitwick, Bedfordshire, MK45 1HP

T: 01525 754777 E: steph@theswanflitwick.co.uk Website: https://www.swaninnflitwick.co.uk/ and

2.               Wednesday 6^th September 1pm food, 2pm business at The Albion Pub,  36 Dunstable Street, Ampthill, Bedford MK45 2JT Phone: 01525 634857

Regular buses link Bedford-Ampthill-Flitwick (Thameslink portal). https://www.facebook.com/thealbionampthill/?locale=en_GB All welcome.

 

If you wish to join us, please notify Mr Simon Barber T. 0208 940 4399 E. simon4barber@gmail.com All welcome, an agenda will be issued.

 

What we need:

Ø   Join ERTA as a member yourself and help recruit others as well

Ø   Offer to assist and serve as a volunteer and fill niches, take on projects and work solo or as part of a team.

Ø Seeking people with cars to team up to cover sales stall opportunities, take-on sales and grow the association, advance the causes, and draw in more people support.

 ERTA Bedfordshire Forum - Wednesday,6 September for 1pm food, 2-4pm business

The Albion Pub, 36 Dunstable Street, Ampthill, Bedford MK45 2JT Phone: 01525-643126
Email: bexlane2201@gmail.com
Website: https://www.facebook.com/thealbionampthill/?locale=en_GB
Side Room (no charge). No food at all(crisps only)but people can buy food to bring into pub e.g fish and chips.Bakery opposite

Regular buses link Bedford-Ampthill-Flitwick (Thameslink portal).

22-06-2023

The English Regional Transport Association (ERTA) predecessors started in Bedfordshire and is still based locally. We are aware of long standing deficits thanks to the closures of local railways and stations from the late 1950's to end-of-the-1960's. Today through choice, culture and habit are locked into car reliance and every new home of a semi/detached design, tends to have 2.5 cars per average. 

This adds up to increasing volumes of traffic and land used for parking accommodation is land that cannot be used for housing, employment or farming for example. At what point do we need to rethink our transport and do what we may to give more modal choices to more people? Examples are walking, cycling, bus and rail access and affordability? There's a cost if we do and do not. On the one hand congestion produces pollution, waste of time and money and diminishes places notorious for delay, and on the other, switching to cleaner-greener methods costs and who blinks first? https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/21/air-pollution-aged-hospital-covid-patients-by-10-years-study-shows

In the past local schemes have been tried at varying places, but national government has a role to take best practise and make it available to all. The post retirement bus concessionary pass was a good idea, has saved bus usership. So why not extend to under 65's who also need to both save money and have better mobility access? 

Likewise, the gap of 20 miles north of Bedford Midland needs a station or more to fill that gap and reduce the burden of driving and finding parking at the oversubscribed Bedford Midland Station. In Central Beds, you have to the east the debacle of East-West Rail unfolding. 

ERTA has made its position known, that whilst we won't stand in the way of a rail link to Cambridge/East Anglia, we'd prefer east of Bedford via St John's and a new-build to the north-south main line for direct linkage and optimal market reach in the Tempsford area. We don't think 44, 000 houses in the middle of nowhere without social infrastructure and services is a good idea and ability get on a train at Biggleswade or Sandy and travel direct without changing to Bedford and the Oxford corridor and that footfall vice versa, would be far more likely to attract usership, than a segregated station north of Tempsford requiring changing trains and the delay of waiting a connection east or west. It feels like the end-to-end push with development quotas for dumping unwanted housing, is the main consideration and seems insensitive to local contextualising? 

At the west of Central Beds, you have buses via Cranfield. No. 41 to Northampton now bi-hourly and still after 6 months we are told the Bedford-Bletchley rail service commences in the autumn, a shocking delay which was unheard of under BR surely? To the south of the Marston Vale we want a study and land protected into what role and case for an Ampthill Parkway Station, which apart from the name, could relieve congested Flitwick and serve a wider area than just Ampthill. We need your support and table forums to bring people together.

South of Central Beds, you have the non-railed South Beds Corridor. Sadly it has gone to Guided Busways, so any new-build rail link, beit Light Rail or conventional to link Luton with Milton Keynes for example; would require new-build and a new corridor to be identified. Some demolition and pain would be necessary, but the gains have to be balanced with status quo locked-in congestion.

Whether 3 Unitary Councils, relatively small compared to our neighbours or a new Bedfordshire County Council with Unitary status would be better for a county-wide coordinated approach would be better, remains to be seen. Not more for less, but what is needed and how to best service that, the people and their communities.

I attach our flyer and we welcome your interest and support.

More readers can be found via our website page: https://ertarail.co.uk/publicity/ We welcome membership, willing volunteers to help us and enable more and better. If you wish to stay on our loop, please let us know. Thanks.

Update 12-06-2023:

Some may be interested to know that ERTA has a mention in Rail Magazine Edn. 985 14 June-27June page 6 on East-West Rail 'Oxbridge Rail'! Join our free email loop via richard.erta@gmail.com - our voice is as strong as you enable!.

Greetings. The turbulent Local Elections and shadow forming of a General Election make it a volatile and time of uncertainty. One lesson the Nottingham-Mansfield rail reopening campaign brought home, was the need for resilience and to have an 'all weather-proof' approach, that no matter who is in power, we carry on regardless to try and advance our causes and constructively seek to work with any who are genuinely on-side or going our way.

ERTA has its nationwide arm, which increasingly is whittled down to Northampton-Bedford and Market Harborough respectively, Guildford-Horsham local rail reopening and Bedford and Shire strategic better public transport awareness and promotion.

East-West plays heavily with much posturing. I've been involved at least 35+ years and we started from nothing, 1997 confirmed our rail route, but dividedness meant it was long grassed. Our amended route from 2019 has failed to court the support it needs.

That defaults to the existing tabled route Northern Route E, for better or worse. Plan B must default to our preferred route and 'make it work'. Pitting concerns of clipping the edge of Priory Park for a railway, contrast 65 houses and disturbance to North Bedfordshire seems a strange morality as fauna and flora can coexist with a railway better than 24x7 road expansion plans. Noise can be abated by noise barriers, mostly wooded and I am sure wildlife adaptedness could be design features on our route through 'sensitive' areas. 

Our route does not require 65* houses or indeed any as yet to be proven/disproven due to a lack of study. Bird Sanctuaries and cycle paths can be redirected or with new bridges, run alongside a railway with suitable fencing. The Office for Road and Rail (ORR) needs lobbying for a 'special dispensation' for either bridging or level crossing at Cardington Road and at Priory entrances and further out at the Willington-Great Barford-Blunham Roads. Apart from that it is embankment and bridging. Funny it can all be done for Northern Route E, whereas our route is presented as more 'problematic'?

My conviction is apart from East-West Rail... There are loads of other public transport issues to address. We need stations north of Bedford with a seamless Bedford-Leicester local rail service bringing stations including Desborough onto the rail network. Bedford-Bletchley, what a disgrace no trains for 6 months and no support for a station for serving the Retail Park Kempston when the local line a. needs patronage when running and b. the Retail Park itself is constrained to provide enough parking and layout-wise is a pedestrian access nightmare to say nothing of crossing the road from the bus stop to access M&S FoodHall, clearly all for the car with associated congestion? 

Good news we have a bi-hourly No. 41 bus to Olney and Northampton reinstated, but end-to-end journey duration needs reform with local feeders to a core end-to-end service speeded up and also across the public transport spectrum that of a. cost of living to affordability of cost to use for people beit low income or families, b. frequency and access and when does public service become mere fiscal consideration over use potential 'being there' for people? No 53 Sunday service cut, used to bring in Hillgrounds to places and take people to leisure and church for example.

Our updated flyer is attached and we welcome people to join, support and engage with our agenda and insert others conducive to it along pro-modal switch lines. There's loads of cycle and road lobbies, but pedestrian, rail and bus and inclusivity still remains. Public transport must be affordable and sad reality is anyone on or below £20, 000 p.a. to £zero brackets will struggle. Costs of car ownership, insurance, service and maintenance is high and so from economic and environmental considerations making public transport fill the gaps and lure people to it, is a goal worth having.

Our meetings are open to all as is membership.

*From above: whatever the precise number of properties is irrelevant, what strikes me is that the original Bedford-Sandy route would have courted less! Yet Councils, to avoid risk and cost implications, said a. no case and b. blockages preclude study which means c. case cannot be established! All disproven, but an inconsistency of pursuit with others means development pressure abound, costs rise and still no railway but expanded roads with growing traffic as the current trend? How 'green' is that?!

Suffice to say, Black Cat Roundabout, Great River Ouse remain significant obstacles and arms linking the physical north-south main line at Tempsford would be more optimal than a segregated railway with two-tier stations and 300 houses in the middle of nowhere? If I can get on a train at St Neots and travel direct to Bedford in 15 minutes, I am more likely to try train, than 35 minutes bus and traffic unless cost makes it worth it or travel from St Neots to Tempsford, change, walk to another platform and await a train from Cambridge, which would add to cost and time?

ERTA Bedfordshire Forum: Wednesday 5th July 2pm-4pm upstairs at Costa Coffee, 20 Silver Street, Bedford, MK40 1SU T. 01234 346 722 All welcome. 10 minutes’ walk from Bedford Midland Railway Station. Discussing and planning means-ways for generating a delegated team and individuals who can help advance our agenda. Richard Pill richard.erta@gmail.com

Annual General Meeting (AGM) and associated: Saturday 15th July 1pm food, 2-3pmpm business and from circa 3pm a discussion on transport issues in Central Bedfordshire including the narrative on Ampthill Station. All welcome. Venue is The Swan Pub (opposite the railway station served by regular Thameslink trains). Plenty of parking as well. Address: The Swan Pub, 1 Dunstable Road, Flitwick, Bedfordshire, MK45 1HP T: 01525 754777 E: steph@theswanflitwick.co.uk Website: https://www.swaninnflitwick.co.uk/ This is your association, please come and hear accounts, reports and engage. A vote will be taken on raising the membership rate to £20 per annum. We need paid-up members to consider joining and serving on the ERTA Executive Committee (EC) all offers via Richard Pill richard.erta@gmail.com

Support a better public transport and environmental deal for Bedford!

 

Ø    A proper railway station on the Bedford-Bletchley Railway to serve the Retail Park and wider Kempston area? Bring back our trains and retain local stations. Please volunteer.
 
Ø    The East-West Rail Link go via the old route (St John’s) and eastwards avoiding knocking down houses. Likewise, to have physical arms to enable south of Peterborough and north of Stevenage/East Bedfordshire direct rail access from where they live to Bedford and the Oxford corridor and vice versa – essential footfall and spend minus congestion? See: https://ertarail.co.uk/publicity/ for a good read.
 
Ø    For a formal year-on-year traffic reduction strategy to cut congestion, waste, emissions and deteriorated public well-being? We need planning and policy with enforcement of existing laws and safeguards.
 
Ø    Stations at Wixams (happening now), Ampthill and Stations North of Bedford (e.g., Oakley, Sharnbrook, Irchester, Burton Latimer, Desborough and Kibworth etc)? Plus, a seamless single train service to and from Leicester and all in between? Say “no” to having to change at Kettering for example!
 
Ø    That pedestrian areas have segregated cycling. That traffic free spaces are made more the norm for our town centre with better enforcement against abusers? It is time to ‘level up’ town centres with out-of-town shopping areas!

 

Ø    A circular bus shuttle linking the main Bedford Midland Railway Station with Tavistock Street, High Street, Borough Hall/Kingsway, Prebend Street, and the railway station and for Grant Palmer bus services to loop the railway station as a part of their overall journeys?

 

Ø    A new-build/new route Bedford-Northampton rail link for direct access by rail to Birmingham and vice versa to Bedford, Cambridge, and Luton? It needs a will for a way to be done. Land needs protecting with identified corridor to enable option to be retained.

 

Ø   ERTA is as good as its membership informs. We are growing! 

Make a difference! https://ertarail.co.uk/