BRTA is concerned that the government pressure and targets, dire need and weakness of planning systems to avoid cost at all cost including legal issues which can also be protracted, that development infill across our green and pleasant lands is going a-pace without adequate infrastructure, rail-based access public transport to facilities like shops, better buses, social housing for local people mix in both urban and rural locations.
We welcome objections to this notwithstanding clarity and confirmation of a route from former Oakley Junction area off the Midland Main Line going west towards Northampton can be done still and if not, can land be protected to ensure realigned or on new-build alongside, a viable route is do-able please?
Bromham has few shops, chronic High Street constant through traffic and a poor hourly bus service. Contrast Biddenham which has expanded but has no shop at all and Stagsden which is without much if any social housing, limited bus, no pub and has fields between A422 bypass and Village Road which could be developed in-keeping with other des-res developments. Cycle way improvements and better facilities to avoid unnecessary driving all the time, could make an emissions reduction impact.
We do need a Bedford-Northampton rail link anew, with new-build where olf route is lost especially avoiding Olney for example. These development allocations seem to tick-box quotas to be seen to develop housing of a certain des-res type, but are parochial in focus and immediates, rather than the whole A428 corridor, that has sprawling development and where 4 cars per house will end up/want to commute to? Urban interfaces, meaning congestion, more pollution, parking land demand (scarce resource) and costs spiralling on and off the roads.
The pothole issue is partly underscored by heavier vehicles pounding structures and road surfaces daily, add to that weather, salt and other toxins inherent of rubber on hard surfaces and exhaust emissions and costs spiral as well as danger to those few cyclists who actually bother to use roads rather than pedestrian spaces?
Our media and politicians must speak out and help to inform a study into reopening the local rail alternative, free-up urban parking demand and make these growing pockets of development more sustainable.
Please see: https://brtarail.com/b2n/ and also we call for a study, like Wixams into Stations North of Bedford at Oakley and Sharnbrook to cut traffic along the A6 and free up Bedford Midland spaces for other rail users/cut drive-times for everyone?
On another track, if a direct curve or 5th track from either Wixams or Bedford-Bletchley Line is installed with a direct curve onto the fast lines off the local Bedford-Bletchley Railway, ending in a new river bridge and bay at Platform 5 west of Bedford Midland Platform 4, it would be dead-end in all probability and means the Kempston Fire Station may need relocating? I am unconvinced the implications are well thought out and far better to let trains east-west run into Bedford Midland via St John's area, segregating the lines and leaving fast-tracks unimpeded for fast trains or maybe Thameslink if an extra bay on that side was seen as appropriate?
BRTA has called for more and better buses to and looping between the Bus Station and Railway Station as part of the overall journey/routing of issues and problems can be overcome. That it has been an on-going issue for 40 years since privatisation, is curious, and no politicians seem to want to bring heads together to address it as opportune to more direct footfall and spend in town centre outlets including (orbital bus fashion) Tavistock Street, High Street and Bromham Road (new stop outside Wyvern House) and into Hassett Street for outwards from Bus Station.
The new Greyfriars ideal of Woolwich high rise in central Bedford designs, will mean the roundabout goes and a loss of open green space. I am not sure how buses entering and leaving the bus station will cope with a single x2 way traffic light operation and the high rise flats proposed at close proximity will cast a shadow on an area which is less-than ideal for pedestrians and a main walk-way to and from Bedford Midland Station via dingy Alexandra Place and Woburn Road. I think poor links with Bedford Midland and the High Street are missing an economic trick based on car-legs myopia, which is a false economy!
It could be instructional to restore through buses between one end of urban cordons to the other like merge No. 1 with No. 5 for Norse Road to Kempston and back for example, No. 7 with No. 3 and 51 with 9 to/from Clapham and Shortstown? It could shave time wasted baying at the Bus Station, enable more flexible operations and free up capacity for more bus services? At least could it be kept under review? Affordability is a key plank beyond usual usage of buses, so 18+ bus passes to retirement age is something which would give lifestyle choices, greener options, fill buses and save costs on car ownership, when young people need to get to college, work, leisure outlets and save money they do not necessarily have to £3 each time they use a bus on a low income? Leaving home is also a cost and getting public transport right is the difference between idealism and making things work for everyone.
Hope of interest.
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That East West Rail does not take into account linking with Northampton or east-north movements for freight, shows how it lacks any true business sense beyond Oxbridge focuses end-to-end, which while a railway is better than none, misses the point of what better comprehensive linkages can do for modal shift more from national to regional to local focuses and vice versa. If the government ever did plum for a 4th London Airport at Thurleigh in North Bedfordshire to 'share the load and rescue the overheated South East'; then the East-West Rail Northern route would not serve it, be in a tunnel under Ravensden and again misses the whole point of integrated transport links. I fear our route east of Bedford via St John's will be built over by housing, locking-in the Northern route, which is a cynical outcome we have battled with since 1987.
Yours sincerely,
Richard Pill
BRTA CEO
and
Write to your MP and ask for Government support for BRTA's ideas and suggestions to make things work for all!
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