Northampton2Market Harborough (N2MH) Rail Link - a call to action!

03-02-24
BRTA Northampton Working Group Meeting (to be held Saturday 10 February) will be held at the Northampton Quakers in the Emmeline Davies Room (upper floor), Quaker Meeting House, Wellington St, Northampton NN1 3AS 2-4pm business https://www.quaker.org.uk/contact-us Main contact: Mr Simon Barber BRTA T: 0208 940 4399   E: simon4barber@gmail.com
Agenda:
1.     Apologies for absence
2.      Northampton-Market Harborough (N2MH) (introduction and where things are at with Professor Andrew N. Williams Patron and Officer of ERTA
3.      What needs doing? Compilation of a list/brain storming,
4.      Who is prepared to cover what – genuine and reliable offers only
5.      Cycle/leisure interests as well as itself (being green transport option)/route protection needed
6.       Market Harborough – land west of Midland Main Line – ensuring development does not scupper what the railway needs to duck under Midland Main Line.
7.      Brixworth - 10,000 houses
8.      Northampton Station – more platforms and track/redesign needed and the twin northern bays interim usefulness.
9.      Brackmills Branch connectivity and role (including St James Mill Link Road)
10. 6-tracking Bletchley-Milton Keynes
11.Capacity through Leicester creation
12.Getting more public support
13.Any Other Related Business
14.Date of next meeting: suggest the same place ant format and meet thrice yearly (May)
 
Note: Public Meeting at Market Harborough details/all welcome: BRTA Market Harborough Public Meeting – Saturday 16 March – 12pm food and 2-4pm business Lunch Venue: The Sugar Loaf, 18 High Street, Market Harborough, Leicestershire LE16 7NJ W. https://www.jdwetherspoon.com/pubs/all-pubs/england/leicestershire/the-sugar-loaf-market-harborough Agenda: 1pm set-up, 2-4pm business and vacate by 5pm. Meeting Venue: Market Harborough Methodist Church/Hall, Northampton Road, Market Harborough, LE16 9HE www.harboroughmethodistcircuit.org

T: 01858 -467666/ 01858-462077 All others: https://ertarail.co.uk/events/

17-01-24

re: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQT4MFK7dKU

What provision if any for the railway to be rebuilt, road to go over or under railway? We need rail-care now, not abandonment please!

We need your help and support via richard.erta@gmail.com

29-11-23 Bad News from West Northants Council - poor stewards of the rail agenda!

The planning reference numbers in regard to the Northampton North-West Relief Road is (Ref.No.19/00045/CCDFUL) when it was under the control of Northamptonshire County Council (developmentcontrol@northamptonshire.gov.uk) and the person at that time was Peter Moor which was made in June 2020. This was their response:

   Please find attached a letter relating to the application 19/00045/CCDFUL: The construction of new roads (Northampton North West Relief Road) on land South of the A5199 Northampton Road between the Brampton Health Golf Centre and the River Nene, including two new roundabouts and links bridging over the River Nene to Brampton Land and over the Northampton loop of the West Coast mainline to connect with the Dallington Grange development at Land Off A5199 Northampton Road, Northampton.
 Kind Regards
 Development Control
 Northamptonshire County Council
 Planning Services
 NCC Place
 One Angel Square
 Angel Street
 Northampton NN1 1ED

Recommend you write to them and DfT and ask for the road proposal to be called in and for the railway to be supported? https://www.westnorthants.gov.uk/ and https://members.parliament.uk/government/department?DepartmentId=23

21-11-23 They are saying all the right things but fall short of specific advocacy and funding studies to make the case for rebuilding a Northampton-Market Harborough rail link - why? https://www.railfreight.com/railfreight/2023/11/21/uk-midlands-connect-spotlights-the-need-for-increased-regional-capacity/

Update on the ground - we need pro-affirma rail spades, not blocking tactics! 15-11-2023

re: https://www.northamptonchron.co.uk/news/people/incredible-drone-footage-shows-transformation-of-countryside-in-northampton-to-make-way-for-new-homes-and-ps545m-road-4409997

Government issues housing demands to councils who then find land and seeks to build to meet quotas - not unlike fishing in the sea! The process means cheap land, non controversial land and using the demand to supply but making other compromises along the way, the political fix. NIMBYs don't want a railway, whilst many do see the strategic need and justification and studies indicate potential benefits on and off the tracks if we do reopen. Bedford-Northampton had that development adjacent to Delapre Abbey, whilst not on the trackbed, leaves no room for a full-bodied electrified railway and objections of trains in close proximity does not stretch imagination.

Now we see similar tactics on Northampton-Market Harborough (N2MH), whereby the sacrifice of the railway corridor based on either a belief it can never reopen or a determined will not to reopen is the political fix of what we appear to be dealing with as far as Northamptonshire and elsewhere informs.

I would urge you to please write to West Northants Council and object and write in favour of the railway which could balance demands for development with sustainability issues. Block the line and you have development without better public transport and congestion unadulteratedly grows and proliferates and Northampton's air pollution is amongst the worst in the country.

So please:

1. Object: https://www.westnorthants.gov.uk/

2. Write in favour of the railway: https://www.westnorthants.gov.uk/councillors-and-committees/find-your-councillor

3. Work with ERTA and join if not a member, informing our fighting fund more/donate: https://ertarail.co.uk/become-a-member/

4. Read the study: https://ertarail.co.uk/elementor-1581/

5. Ask the government to intervene: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-transport

6. England's Economic Heartlands - fine talk is easy, gritty issues blocking railway corridors or making reopening harder, is exactly what we need going forward whilst making the case/further studying credentials justifying efforts to nurture policies for a railway x nationwide elsewhere too: https://www.englandseconomicheartland.com/

7. Your local MP, can he/she have a word with the Northampton MP's and get them suitably actioning efforts for the railway more?https://members.parliament.uk/members/commons

Scroll up, scroll down and please don't accept defeat. ERTA is organising a Working Group and making progress is exactly what we need. The planting of housing and roads on trackbeds or prohibitively adjacent to rail requirement going forwards, is nonsensical from a social, economic and environmental stand point and in the interests of public health needs to be abated: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-66939602

ERTA and my role is one of coordination and delegation. You are our voice to get things done principally on the ground. Please wade in and help us. Remember what we said about Christmas and Summer Holiday periods being time to bury bad news! 

Dear All,

I am pleased to say that our colleague Professor Andrew N. Williams has done sterling work to advance the cause  of a reopened Northampton-Market Harborough Railway. He managed to persuade his local MP to ask a question in the House of Commons (HOC) to which the Rail Minister gave the following reply:

"Answer:

Huw Merriman:

On behalf of sub-national transport body England's Economic Heartland, Network Rail previously prepared a feasibility study into reinstating a railway connection between the West Coast Main Line at Northampton and the Midland Main Line at Market Harborough. I encourage him to engage with England's Economic Heartland further on this.

The answer was submitted on 25 Oct 2023 at 09:46."

Therefore, we encourage people to write in support of the railway and similar ERTA supports - which is not every railway that ever was despite some detractors (!) - to make England's Economic Heartland aware of support for reopening the rail link and make a bee-line to their annual conference in Cambridge on 1st November see: https://www.englandseconomicheartland.com/

and work with Andrew (see cc) to multiply support especially as per your local MP where you live for example.

You can write to Huw Merriman MP Minister for Transport at the Department for Transport giving support to ERTA and our calls. Although not exhaustive, we call for:

1. The government (and ask opposition parties) for lists and commitment to an on-going programme of local, conventional rail reopenings, rebuilds and select new-builds x nationwide with all the benefits.

2. That the study -see https://ertarail.co.uk/elementor-1581/ - and whilst the list is not exhaustive, gives a flavour of what we are focusing on. Northants MP Andrea Leadsom whose constituency covers Brackley recently wrote in favour of a new Silverstone Station, whereas we call for a new Brackley East Station with connecting buses. I am unsure what connecting railway her station would be, but HS2 ruled it out ages ago and our suggestion is a new spur off the emergent Oxford-Bletchley rail link (East-West Rail) and via a new alignment parallel to HS2 alignment, have a new station to serve what is the growing area of Greater Brackley and cream off commuters from the busy dual carriageway A43 for example. Silverstone is part of the jigsaw, but hopefully such a line as a Phase 1, could go on to Rugby Central as a Parkway for access by rail to Oxford and Aylesbury for example with maybe another station in between as well. Little acorns, but expediency or for real, the MP's raised a pertinent point which at very least calls for a bluff to be called, or letters from constituents in support to get a study underway as to feasibility, which encompasses a multitude of things potentially.

We do need more members, donations and people offering to volunteer and help fill niches, support and help multiply our work and both quality and quantity. Making demands unless one is prepared to be part of the answer, is a vacuous thing, whereas we are stronger together in these endeavours.

Yours sincerely,

Richard Pill

ERTA CEO