Ampthill-Flitwick Forum for 10th September 2022

ERTA Ampthill and Flitwick Forum:

Saturday 10^th September 2022, 1pm food* 2-4pm business.

Venue is The Swan Pub, 1 Dunstable Road, Bedford MK45 1HP

​It is adjacent to the Thameslink-served railway station and with ample parking and bus links too. https://www.swaninnflitwick.co.uk/menus/ 

Write in support of a new additional station for Ampthill to:

1. Ampthill Town Council: https://www.ampthilltowncouncil.org.uk/contact

2. Central Beds Council: https://www.centralbedfordshire.gov.uk/directory/14/a_to_z/B

3. MP for Mid Beds: Ms Nadine Dorries https://members.parliament.uk/member/1481/contact

All welcome. If coming please email richard.erta@gmail.com

Any offers with reliable leafleting around Ampthill and Flitwick ahead of this event are welcome. Please let us know. All offers to help, assist and lead are also welcome to entertain please. Make it your campaign and endeavour too! It is all voluntary.

*Everyone is responsible to buy and pay for their own food and transport costs.

Apologies were received from a Mr Steve Anderson of Centre Parcs and Nadine Dorries MP for Mid Bedfordshire Constituency which includes Flitwick and Ampthill.

We followed an agenda and there were many questions and discussions. Some ranged from the inadequacy of Flitwick Station in a context of growth and demand for more parking over coming years. Others that Ampthill would be both a relief station and compliment Flitwick as well. 

Bus integration, cycle-pedestrian access, lowering speed and installing either a footbridge or crossing at the junction of Station Road Ampthill and A507 and the station access road which currently serves as an industrial complex. Some relocation packages would need brokering as per protection of lands west side of the Midland Main Line, which we understand is under threat of development in coming years.

It was admitted the population in a 5-mile catchment has and is expanding and Flitwick Station alone cannot cope beit lack of land for expanded parking, the road layout and single bridge over the railway and congestion and parking in local streets all would be partly resolved with the addition of An Ampthill railway station.

Action Stations:

It was explained that ERTA is a stretched voluntary outlet which is in the business of planting ideas. It needs public, elected representatives, all tiers of governance to support those ideas and in turn commission/access funding pots to work up the case and formal credentials with a view to courting Government support and ultimately a permission towards delivery. Landowners, leisure outlets, councils of all tiers, agencies and many more could contribute to a pot with studies in mind to find answers to questions, see what needs to be done and through policy and action, set about moving the agenda towards delivery.

Summary of key points:

1. It needs funding for a study

2. land retention to keep western approaches and other access routes viable

3. Relocation packages

4. May only be a half hourly frequency of Thameslink’s, but given plethora of frequency, it should be perfectly possible to absorb into a timetable.

5. Buses and inter-rail/bus-train ticketing could retain viability of bus networks more.

6. A need to get tiers of governance on board and in particular the Central Bedfordshire Unitary Council to help and work with us and be instrumental in gathering people, resources and round-tabling in a view of a good idea, not dismissing it.

7. The growth means something needs to be done or retained as a viable option.

Next meeting: same venue The Swan Pub, 1 Dunstable Road, Bedford MK45 1HP

T: 01525 754777 E: steph@theswanflitwick.co.uk It is adjacent to the Thameslink served railway station and with ample parking and bus links too. https://www.swaninnflitwick.co.uk/menus/ and will be 1pm food, 2-4pm business on Saturday 10^th September – all welcome to come, meet and join as members and offer to assist or lead accordingly please.

Meeting closed 15.10pm and it was felt as a first post-pandemic, it was a useful exercise and potential still to build on towards getting local people to help more and give the vital support, holding elected representatives to account and take an interest. 

All enquiries and expressions of interest via richard.erta@gmail.com and keep an eye on our website: https://ertarail.co.uk/

Road v Rail Event - It is time for a national plan of modal shift from road to rail and that means local rail reopenings and nurture.

This event is free apparently and 'open to all': https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/roads-vs-rail-reducing-emissions-by-2030-tickets-135985449139?ref=esli&utm_campaign=201308&utm_source=LinkedInenivtefor001

Roads v Rail is a polemic, whereas what we may need to see is more nurture and integration as follows:

1. a rolling programme of local, conventional rail reopenings/rebuilds/realignment lands and select new pieces of rail to enable rail to do more, court new markets and nurture modal shift by default of rails going where flows go. Thus north-south capacity - our call to re-rail/new-build a Great Central Link between Calvert/Banbury and Rugby/Lutterworth/Narborough (for East Midlands), Northampton-Market Harborough another. Default capacity creation is a nice idea, but passenger demand post covid may go up but in any case if the rail gaps exist, rail cannot be an answer. East-West Oxbridge rail link, but a new dedicated rail alongside A14 from Felixstowe to the West Coast Main Line with radial links in between would also seem logical, as 100 mile gap between North London Line (which takes a lion's share) and Peterborough-Leicester-Nuneaton rail link.

2. A plan for every line for rail-born nurture of freight by rail. Like Green Energy we tend to be presented with a big is beautiful or bust and trade reports on costs and locations, when small and plentiful can also reduce carbon.

3. A plan for formal protection of routes/lands to keep re-railing open. The new edition of Rail Issue 922, page 16 'Regional News' today has a bit about a canal threat to the Guildford-Horsham line, saying it will not stop a rail reopening. Personally having walked the line I think it is less clear cut, especially adjacent to line edge development and issues of double track and cycle/footpath access - can it really sustain it all?

4. A national plan for modal shift from road to rail, but also more combining road and rail interim like intermodal swap-body wagons, a dedicated Piggyback rail route from Channel Tunnel to Heart of England, an inland roll-on, roll-off rail network, bring back motor-rail and every train able to carry small loads of freight by rail like parcels, pallets, bikes, luggage, and dedicated freight again wagon loads to mixed goods to Speedlink style to full block trains. If we don't have the infrastructure, can't be done, but needs to be nurtured. One planning rule could be that warehouse complexes must be rail connected and have a percentage by rail from day one, not an after-thought of retrospective nice idea without inclusion of rail.

Hope these thoughts are of interest. I am sure you may have some of your own too.

Northampton Depots and the Roads Agenda v Rail

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Another rail depot, measuring five million square feet, planned near Northampton... metres from original eight million square feet scheme

Another rail depot, measuring five million square feet, planned near Northa... A second rail depot plan that would place five million square feet of warehouses in countryside just outside Nor...

These new developments face the conundrum of what capacity there is on the West Coast Main Line. Facing media blackout in Northampton currently. However Northampton-Bedford-Bletchley loop would offer capacity for non-time-critical and empty movements for example and that would free some paths through Milton Keynes and Northampton. NIMBYS don't want these depots citing loss of countryside, but more road expansion is not opposed - strange coincidence! Likewise the Government reigns over austerity but has loads of money to splash on big projects like Hinckley, HS2, Trident, road schemes and Heathrow.

More road widening and yet 30 year old units on Marston Vale keep breaking down and a new generation needs to be commissioned - yet we are told no money, take recycled underground stock instead or go bust. There is a role for campaigning on these things and one way or other, it is indispensable albeit we need new blood to come forward to take on front line and active parts to foster a new wave of support. So rare, per chance between a hard rock and hot place with pushes to work, lack of slack with welfare cuts and workaholism being lauded as morally right when balance is more nearer to what wisdom would counsel, not least if you lose your health through over work and tarrying, you're in a worse state than a steady pace. Meanwhile Northampton is worth us working on and directing new team players to wade into. New buildings at the Olney Industrial Estate I observe. 

It is a fragile stay of execution, but if frivolously thrown away or dismissed or not pursued with equal vigor to Oxford-Bedford, Bedford-Cambridge, it must be pursued now not as some later addendum 2050! Yet that is the fob off we're getting one way or another. My report will be published in March and will put down a marker that opportunity to move the railway forward exists now, 5 years hence, may not be the case. By that time we'll be reaching gridlock saturate in our town centres and politicians need to realise you can't build your way out of it, rather re-balance the logistical apparatus to give people a fighting chance. Clean Air is not just about what sort of engine one has in ones car, but on fostering the rail alternative. Chicken and egg, no wagons equals can't do when someone asks about freight by rail, to have wagons a demand is required and so it goes on, lorry is cheaper, more versatile and easier to get hold of. But even that is reaching saturation point, so containers stack up, the system slows down and costs rise - enter inflation pittied on diminutives. ERTA may fold, but I as an individual will keep on with producing reports as a rader until we lose our route, then all is lost but for a turning off of the oil supply and making people pick up their bags and walk more. 

That is not fantasy but we should plan to prevent it by nurturing the sensible rail choices. It is cynical devils who bemoan and yet won't hire/pay me by the hour to work on this and then say "hey, we're volunteers who work, we don't have any spare time" - so nothing happens x generations relative to the road lobby who have an all encompassing in-built system whereby everyone has cars, everyone wants roads, every user demands cheap fuel and the politics and votes work their way out to lock-in recycling of the pattern. Rail has no mechanism to do likewise as it is fragmented to introverted parts caged by the contract/franchise and reps do not speak freely, they represent the particular interests of their members which is a fix point for xtown and a new pipe for ybox. Cracking the Northampton nut is pivotal to whether we grasp the nettle or concede defeat. Feedback: e. erta.rails6@yahoo.co.uk

http://www.northamptonchron.co.uk/news/another-rail-depot-measuring-five-million-square-feet-planned-near-northampton-metres-from-original-eight-million-square-feet-scheme-1-7655713