Although deadline is past, please write to Bedford local MP and elected Borough Councilillors supporting these suggestions as well/help advocate them:
1. St Peters Street. Could consideration be given to
a. making the bus stop a stop on the 905 Bedford-Cambridge Bus with pick up/drop off and new flag and timetable please? Useful for Eagle Books, Quarry Theatre, local shops and businesses. Also saves extra miles to the Bus Station only restriction.
b. Could consideration be given for a Zebra Crossing or similar halfway along St Peters Street to bridge between local north-facing businesses inc. Lidls and the Eagle Bookshop. It is a long way to walk both ends, it is a busy x2-way thoroughfare for busy traffic flows, making crossing hazardous especially for slower walking people.
2. Consider this: High Street North-South has many small shops, banks and business outlets but no bus stop/bus service linking it with principal places and the Bedford Midland Railway Station (20 minutes walk for slower people), whereas St Paul's Square has Corn Exchange, Toilets and Oxfam. Can we give High Street some bus drop-off and pick up access benefit please - they all pay their taxes. Sustaining outlets is vital to avoid empty shop syndrome proliferation and negative vibes/spiral down images.
3. Please consider public toilets/cubicles for front of Bedford Midland Railway Station as barriers exist and access/area a public toilet desert, especially for visitors.
4. Can any help be given for BRTA to have its second hand book stall and promotion table reinstated and noticeboard access for wider rail-users contact and engagement please?
5. Can a toilet provision north of Butterfly Bridge be made for multi-use including disabled and baby changing as Town Centre-Aspects is a toilet desert, popular place and outlets for food and drink exist. Toilet provision south of the river is also grossly inadequate/non-existent, ditto Wixams - for people visiting, working and leafleting including disabilities people who need to go/need local access/panic attacks can bring on sudden bowel movements.
6. Grant Palmer services are a mixed bag, their stats need monitoring and tweaking of route and ensuring reliability, reasonable timetables and staff customer friendly training need to be looked into and tweaked as well please. All Grant Palmer bus services should be contracted to call via Bedford Midland Railway Station as a part of their overall bus service routes and provision.
7. Queens Park. No. 8 Stagecoach bus often gets over-crowding - should be made thrice hourly, especially at peak times 4pm-6.30pm and 7am-9am for example and maybe 12 Noon-2pm (lunchtime). It goes all round wills mothers and means Old Ford End Road and Great Denham is a long journey relatively. Could a Grant Palmer service be contracted to do Bedford Bus Station-Ford End Road-Old Ford End Road - Great Denham-Kempston West End-Stagsden, Bromham and back via Biddenham Turn (orbital) and Ashburnham Road and Midland Road to Bus Station as well?
8. Could No. 41 be reinstated to hourly at least and peak times and midday and go along Bedford-Stagsden Road on onwards to Turvey and Stagsden and all-round village cut back/deferred to the proposed Grant Palmer orbital new please? End-to-end bus timings and frequency are a disgrace and more could be benefited to town centres and commuting for work by improving the bus routes and end-to-end timings without a toilet please.
9. Can X5 be made half hourly at peak times am, Midday and pm and now we have buses than coaches, can it serve a new stop on the corner of Biddenham/A428 Bypass roundabout for Biddenham people and adjacent to have direct bus access to Milton Keynes and into Bedford without changing into and out of town centre again, wasting 20-60 minutes by which time direct, they would have long arrived at MK for example.
Likewise the bus stop back to Bedford from MK Shopping Centre has a dirt path west end with poorly configured access, lacks a litter bin and needs to be kept an eye on please/make cross-council representation to amend the situation.
10. Can the new Bedford-Hitchin Stevenage Bus call via Hitchin Railway Station for interchange and cross modal ticketing for feeding to wider rail network and out-lying areas the bus serves please?
11. MK1 seems well used, but No 44 to Wixams Retirement Centre should be reinstated from Maulden to Flitwick principal Centre Beds Railway Station and vice versa.
12. Can more progress/information be disseminated on a Wixams Railway Station - a long way from A6 (!) (needs a bus arcing) and hurry the process up or public admit half-hearted/protracted bureaucratic and developer abuse defeat when it was originally promised, ditto more shops and amenities of a 'new town'?
13. Can consideration be given/explored on a new Sustrans cycle-way between Bedford/Harrowden/Abbeyfields area to Shefford Town Centre along the former Bedford-Hitchin corridor/through Old Warden Tunnel for walking, cycling, leisure and recreational corridor with wildlife/off road access for the public? Footfall and spend for Shefford (onwards cycle access to Arlesey Station and other places) and more to Bedford/something to promote. Healthy lifestyles also a benefit/reduces cost/increases satisfaction/appreciation.
14. Can Mill Street be made one-way towards the High Street/Debenhams and made a single lane for access and traffic, with pavement widening especially on the northern side with trees and benches for more leisure/window browsing and rejuvenation for small outlets who really need more footfall and flow. People walk past on busy narrow pavement space x wheelchairs and other pavement users (right or wrong/hazardous) and needs reform.
15. With the closure of the Civic Theatre we lost a ground-access public amenity for conference, plays and other public events. Harpur Centre and Corn Exchange has step access and is a barrier to attracting people off-the-streets to engage with events/making viability more. Can a round-table to court grants and funding be made to buy as a civic outlet for displays, arts, museum and public events akin to Harpur Suite, the former Howard Chapel in Mill Street bridging as it would High Street and Museum/Higgins/Panacea/Bunyan with more area footfall and spend on the back of it please. It should not be used as a nightclub or similar, the deteriorated condition of the former grave-stones with vandalism is a disgrace and shows a lack of care, diligence of the past and history and inheritance. If we work at securing a round-table and investors/grants it could be used as a civic amenity and the west-side side-passage opened up for public access by public between Mill Street and Ram Yard areas and vice versa.
16. On another note may I ask the Bedford Park concerts, winter wonderland and all such, be moved to out-of-town areas like Twinwoods as noise, attracting drug dealing, other crimes and swamping St Michaels Road area with parking, uncouth behaviours and lowers the tone of the area, with noise and abuses. A linking bus for such events between Bedford Midland Station, Bedford Bus Station and events like rock concerts, should also be demanded for outlay inclusion of minimum requirement provision as part of ticketing arrangements x every event. Only theatre, classical music, band-stand free amenity music and Christian and similar Services/public open-air gatherings like rallies; should be allowed in Bedford Park, peace, quiet and recreation should be the culture to foster generally. I hate the commodification of public spaces and amenities in built-up residential areas.
Feedback - please write and support our calls:
On other aspects: The Parade of Shops in Bedford Road, Kempston could do with a Greggs and a Mc Donalds.
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 goes 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.
Footfall and spend is contagious for informing sustaining other businesses and area outlets. The lack of a footbridge between Southfields Kempston and the Retail Park is an indictment of a lack of foresight as well.
Better security and patrolling at Bedford Bus Station to clamp down on alcohol, littering and reassuring the public they are not in the wild west/lawless culture would also be useful.
A commitment to nurturing more wind farms on-shore/Renewable Energy and more Archimedes Water Screws between Bedford and Olney.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedes%27_screw
Make St Cuthberts one-way going north and Bushmead Avenue one-way south to Castle Road. St Cuthberts/St Peters Street Junction is a busy place and pedestrians pay the price. It needs reform with equal red light across both junctions for adequate and consistent pedestrian safe access across these roads - 20 seconds per time minimally please. Benefit, is to cut queues and waiting time on Goldington Road going westwards at the St Cuthberts Junction, lowering canyoning and emissions.
Bedford is lovely except for congestion, pollution and wasting time in road queues exacerbating the problem. Public health and well being by tacking it is well documented.
Merging Central Beds Council with Bedford Borough to form one Unitary County Council may also be worth looking at. Bedford could have a elected town council (reduce quangos) (see Northampton for details).
Midland Road West, Gateway to Bedford Town Centre is shabby. It should be an east-west High Street and treated akin to the north-south traditional High Street - done up, not done in! One-way west traffic, one-way east for buses, cycles and pedestrians (widen pavement space with chairs and a few trees and litter bins).
Hope of interest. Sorry it is long or repetitive, but hope you get the big picture and small details. It is not about spend when finances are thread-bare, rather working with what can be done and quick win, wins whilst getting out rail alternatives and buses integrated and comprehensive enough to offer a real alternative for people and goods and associated social, economic, environmental and moral well-being.
Join BRTA and be part of the answer not the problem!
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