ERTA Updated Rail Reopenings Pamphlet March 2021

It is good news that places like Ashington, Stratford upon Avon and Okehampton are to get their railway restored and a smattering of reopened or new stations as well. This is progress in the right direction. Still a long way to go. As with our sister organisation Railfuture, we take some of the kudos for ushering the agenda along over the years and indeed predecessors to ERTA organisation, decades. 

We are led to believe we face a Climate Emergency and so a need to cut fossil fuel burning, exhaust and tyre friction on hard surfaces is essential to lower public respiratory illness and premature death as well as cutting greenhouse gases which erode the atmosphere and creates conditions against human and wildlife habitat.

In 1993 I was at a UN Conference in Manchester where we marked the occasion of the calculated crossing of a threshold from a predominantly rural planet to a majoritively urban planet and 30 years on, we are seeing that worked out with bombardments of development, but with stretched resources, high demand and land use being a premium and scarce resource. Infrastructure has mainly been the presumption of roads and road vehicles, even public transport, whereas historically, we need to rectify the rail deficit for passenger and freight. See: Rio 92: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Conference_on_Sustainable_Development.

ERTA continues to push for route protection, reopenings, rebuilds and choice for public transport users. A development of 500 houses at 2.5 cars per household means 1500 extra vehicles per day on local roads. So the issues abound. We do need more volunteers to take responsibility and help us reliably enable more to be done on the right lines! Thank you.

Copies pdf free via richard.erta@gmail.com

Bedford Borough Plan - where's the rail infrastructure?

There is a consultation in the Harpur Centre on the Bedford Local Plan 2035. See www.bedford.gov.uk/localplan2035. Email: planningforthefuture@bedford.gov.uk 
Check those houses at Bromham and relation to a clear access for Cobbler Line trajectory. 
Closing date is 9th June.
Questions via 01234 718300. Things we want is as follows:
a. Station at Oakley north of Lower Farm Road.
b. Retail Park Station on the MVR not MML!
c. East-West Rail sooner than later with Bedford-Sandy being delivered same time as Oxford-Bedford ideally - what are we getting for £10 million allocated?
d. All build results in road saturation and progressive gridlock. Same style houses being rolled out Bedford, Northampton, Milton Keynes, Cambridge... this results in ever more cloning of towns/residential estate areas.
e. Unless there's a more focused and coherent plan for the rail projects a-c by 2035 not after 2035, we will have a short fall of footfall and spend, informing closed shop syndrome and spiraling diminishment of traditional town centres, more out of town pressure to pander to the car. Empty properties abound domestic and commercial and more directives to fill and amend those first before green field expansion should be looked at.
f. Bedford-Northampton should be progressed with East-West not addendum to it/afterthought.
g. Network Rail must be flexible on level crossing and bridge adaptations, Cardington Road Bedford and Bridge Street Northampton need rail accessibility to be retained.
h. Wixams and/or Ampthill should be pursued together or incrementally, both serve differential markets - Wixams declutters commuting into Bedford for rail, Ampthill declutters Flitwick off the M1/A507 and all south of Wixams e.g. Marston Moretaine/A421 development corridor.