Flitwick Station and Retail Expansion

This development should raise concerns: 
http://www.centralbedfordshire.gov.uk/news/april/flitwick-regeneration.aspx 

I suggest you write and object and cite that looking at Ampthill would be better:

1. this development will act as a major traffic generator informing demands for parking and resulting in more congestion.

2. We need a crossing from the footbridge over the road to the Swan Pub

3. Bus shelter to Ampthill needs cleaning, better information with RTI or similar and later buses linking the station and the town of Ampthill which is expanding too

4. Flitwick deals with traffic from a wider area- M1/Milton Keynes, Olney and Wixams for a start and the town will be over-run with cars.

5. Ampthill offers relief from the Steppingley Road side off the A507 and could offer more parking capacity for the area generally

6. this development puts more pressure on Froghall, Road which has a bridge height restriction

7. Station platforms at Ampthill need to be staggered for land-access issues with entrances and exits both sides of the MML and via a foot/cycle exit south of industrial estate into Froghall Road for Redbourne School and East Flitwick which aligns to Froghall Ropad and A507 roundabout now - all spaces being filled in with developments. Options need to be kept open. For solidarity and further support please see Twitter @ReopenStations or contact 

Membership, Recruitment, Administrator and Finance Liaison Officer: Mr Simon Barber, 20 Fitzherbert House, Kingsmead, Richmond, Surrey, TW10 6HT

T. 0208 940 4399 E. simon4barber@gmail.com 

Retail Park, Kempston - call for a new station to serve it.

Retail Park, Kempston - call for a new station to serve it.

The Retail Park, Kempston has grown to three sites since inception in the early 1980’s. Today it commands a considerable patronage, the majority of which come by road to work, shop and enjoy leisure at the site. There was a view to develop a station but for some reason the idea was dropped, it was resurrected in about 2004 but a handful of objections led to it being shelved. Since then the Retail Buildings have screened off residential Kempston and shrubbery on the residential side has been allowed to grow considerably.

           

The Railway which runs adjacent to the original site is that of the Bedford-Bletchley alias Marston Vale Railway. This line has seen remarkable growth in patronage over recent years but still remains more busy during peak periods am/pm and less-well-used during off peak times – the lion’s share of the day.

Ampthill Road (A6) feeds a lion’s share of the traffic into the B530 which served the Retail Park sites. These roads and those arteries to and from them radially, get bunged up with traffic, a lion’s share of which is due to the popularity and success of the Retail Park, as a wide range of traffic from about 15 mile radius seeks to access the venue. The demand for parking outstrips supply per volume and so congestion, tail backs and some frustration is keenly felt. Standing traffic emits fumes and exhaust and residential areas have to breathe that standing traffic’s air.

The Solution to alleviate the problem of success is to provide more and better options for more people from more diverse reaches and ranges to use the Retail Park and access it. ERTA calls for and has long called for, the provision of a station adjacent to the Retail Park on the Marston Vale Railway with a footbridge cum cycle-bridge over the two tracks to enable Kempston residents to walk and cycle to the Retail Park, freeing up parking spaces.

The railway is due to be incorporated into the East-West Rail project which means the audience to the Retail Park would increase considerably and use sustainable transport to get to and from it and the surrounding area. Oxford-Bletchley-Bedford is a population catchment of some considerable numbers of people given connections at Bletchley, Bicester and Oxford let alone from the Bedford direction. In other words the railway station would quickly pay for itself and the benefits on and off the railway would be keenly felt.

Key Benefits of Pursuing the Station

·      More customers for the Retail Park

·      Greater reach and range of shoppers

·      Easier access for work and shopping

·      More parking spaces for others to use

·      Integrated East-West Rail reaches and ranges

·      Both sides bus and rail integration: No. 42 south-side, No.1 Orchard Street Parade.

·      Boost Access to Kempston Town Population of over 19, 000 people according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kempston.

·      Benefit by bridging the two-way transport access with Bedford Town Centre

·      Cutting queues of congestion around the Ampthill Road/B530 Junction, helping everyone live, move and breathe easier.

·      Choice with more joined up networks and integrated links, putting people first.

Public and Community Call to Action

Only by a growing membership can ERTA’s voice be stronger and exercise influence to get local politicians to support this station initiative. Please add your voice by joining ERTA today and get involved in helping to take this campaign forward, building a team of local people who care and want to make a difference.

Join ERTA and help us realise this essential piece of local infrastructure to help communities thrive and cope better amidst the clamour of development and its wider impact. See https://ertarail.com/ And let the journey begin!

 See our dedicated web-page: https://ertarail.com/retail-park-station-bedford-bletchley-railway-kempston/ and vote with your feet – join ERTA!

In any case contact: English Regional Transport Association (ERTA)

Second Officer, Co-London Coordinator and Northampton – Olney- Bedford Corridor, Stations and Field Officer:

Mr David Ferguson,

T. 020-8876-3340 E. daferguson1212@gmail.com

https://ertarail.com/

Get Bedford Moving Campaign

Get Bedford Moving Campaign

So the Borough Council is bidding for £millions for a scheme to address traffic and capacity issues along Ampthill Road? It is my conviction at least that this scheme will not cut congestion but will probably result in squeezing the cycle-pedestrian share paths to cycle lanes on a widened road-way? Much of this traffic is bound to and from the Retail Park at Kempston and what that needs is a station on the Bedford-Bletchley Railway with a cycle-footbridge linking Southfields Kempston with the Retail Park. This would give more options, open up the area to more footfall and spend but also create more parking spaces. The Retail Park's expansion is running out of land and more growth generates more road traffic and it needs somewhere to park. Meanwhile local residents get the emissions from exhausts on all sides and on that score alone the Council should be seeking means and ways to reduce car and other traffic by nurturing alternatives from walking, cycling and better public transport.

Buses deliver dollops of footfall and spend wherever they go and have bus stops for dropping off. Places like Black Tom, Tavistock Street, Prebend Street and the High Street do not have buses and those which serve the railway station are scant during the day.

These glaring gaps could be rectified and the smaller shops benefit from the new trade they would bring. Likewise pedestrianisation of the High Street and Midland Road West would extend the town centre footfall and flow and make for a better shopping experience as more buses bring more footfall and spend to a broader area. Pandering to the car means land used for ever more parking which cannot be used for housing or business purposes. All that traffic spills onto an ancient town road system which was never designed to cope with it all. 

It is ironic that Government can find £55 billion for HS2 and £3.5 billion for a new road but for poor old East-West Rail and Bedford-Northampton we have a 6 year wait for Oxford-Bedford and well into the 21st century for the other two, if creeping development allows a route to be recovered. Yet as Bedford, unlike Milton Keynes is not adjacent to a motorway, we need these rail links more to bring sustainable footfall and spend to our ailing town centre. Quangos at £millions are invisible, lack-lustre and a waste. We need locally elected, accountable and visible people able to bang the tables of Whitehall for a fairer deal for Bedford - to balance our transport and moral leaders can lead by voting with their feet than giving the signal car-lifestyles are justified. I would suggest not if they impinge on the reasonable chances of others and that is the equation which is yet to be squared. Join us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/877055242435042/

Marston Vale under developer v passivity attack!

https://mmetag.wordpress.com/2017/03/08/unusual-view-of-marston-vale/

and

http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/ehs/news/2014/jun/autism-and-pesticides

Click the links above for fuller picture and benefit to the reader below:

Comment: Surely we do not want 500+ extra lorries pounding local roads per day? On the other hand, if it were rail connected and doubled up as a zero waste cum recycling hub on a regional scale (ratios of viability and train-load capacity) and if the ash was taken out and if non-toxic such as to not need underground storage for the long term, but could be ploughed back in some shape or form beit an embankment bulking material, fertiliser or some other use - then the demand that it be rail served in design terms from day one should be a planning requirement before any go-ahead considerations. Many Marston residents take a "we don't want it" stance and understandably, but fail to put anything in it's place - creating jobs, conservation with jobs (not mere arbitrary for those with good fortune to spend quiet week-days starring at and objectifying birds and wildfowl).

Likewise whilst we welcome Bedfordshire on Sunday's article about widening pavements and making High Street single lane, this is a half-way to full pedestrianisation which is the nettle which needs grasping. Traffic could be directed down Shakespere Road, Ashburnham and Prebend Street or via the Western Bypass or by St Peters-St Cuthberts-Newnham Road and then Embankment - Town Bridge. You could part pedestrianise the north end High Street and have a one-way Mill Street to south High Street at Debenhams for example. The agenda of getting buses to serve Tavistock Street remains, Bedford Heights - Town Centre out via Turner Way, back via Gainsborough Rise. Park Road North should be made one way except for buses as often there are stand offs. I got too close to a car waiting a clear-way, without warning they reversed over my bikes front wheel and then drove off, such is the attitude behind the wheel sometimes and it only takes one hot head for an accident - pedestrians come off worse.

These things are replicated across the regions and it is our belief that only an incremental reopening of select closed lines, can we break the roads only stranglehold and un-lock locked-in solutions which compound pollution and mayhem. How could this be funded? Well tolling the motorways at £1 a vehicle every 15 miles would inform a pot towards costs and savings on volume-weight of traffic to road wear and tear maintenance and renewal would save Councils money too. The Saints area including St Minerva Road, has appalling examples of cars parking on kerbs and kerb rutting un-addressed. CPZing the area would enable Zone Boys and Girls to police these streets, nip culprits in the bud and book those who are driving stolen vehicles, dumping vehicles and encroaching legitimate pedestrian spaces. Have cried out for a one-way system for St Michael's Road for donkeys years to no avail - a 'can't, won't, don't' attitude seems rife in some elected circles enthralled with aesthetics over bread and butter matters, hoy-poloy arts and culture, than local, urban and rural sustainability. The trouble with their 'progressive gentrification' agenda sweeping out of the London and Southeast region is that it heralds sterility in it's wake. In short poorer people spend and local businesses get a boost, wealthier people are wealthier because they scrimp and save and buy houses and furnishings which last 20 years - Quality Street not Coronation Street!  

Thanks to all who wrote objecting to the Olney Plan which seeks to scupper the Handley Alignment route. More details even though today is the last day - can be found on our reader-Blogspot: http://ertarailvolunteer.blogspot.co.uk/ 

Finally, we are seeking helpers to share a stall with us at St Paul's Church. You must be reliable and keen and have a good manner for relating with customers. Email erta.rails6@yahoo.co.uk for offers, likewise dropping off any donated railway related books, magazines or small memorabilia for us to sell. Please see: https://ertarail.com/events/ for more details.

Yours sincerely,

Richard Pill

ERTA Officer.

Ps. That improvements to the Marston Vale Railway service and indeed the High Street in Bedford are being explored at all is in no small way a result of our campaigning - it works!

Save a rail route around Olney, Bucks., UK

Save a rail route around Olney, Bucks., UK

February 2017

Dear Members,

Olney Neighbourhood Plan. With this letter is a blank pro-forma letter which you can fill in and send by 5pm on Wednesday 8 March, 2017 to: 

Development Plans Team

Milton Keynes Council

Civic Offices

1 Saxon Gate East

Central Milton Keynes

MK9 3EJ

Or by e-mail to: development.plans@milton-keynes.gov.uk

These plans seek to destroy ‘in the name of expansion’ the Handley Alignment which in 2001 our consultant draw to indicate how a new rail alignment could be implemented with reference to walking and cycling distances of Olney High Street. Now if these developments go ahead, it will be scuppered. Matching the eastern approach old trackbed to western is problematic and as building northwards takes hold, will increasingly become so, unless some big player at some future date does compulsory purchases and implements a new rail through built terrain or a new alignment railway bypasses Olney, which means Olney will be disenfranchised from a new railway. They’ve had plenty of opportunity to work with us but are choosing to ignore the railway as ‘pie in the sky’. You can find more information on the Milton Keynes Council website:

http://www.milton-keynes.gov.uk/planning-and-building/planning-policy/olney-neighbourhood-plan and on our Blogspot: http://ertarailvolunteer.blogspot.co.uk/ where the Handley Alignment map also is posted with comment.

Meanwhile we are seeking a new team of people to look with fresh eyes on Northampton-Bedford and by whatever means, to seek reopening beit preservation, community rail or conventional modern rails, to get a foothold and move out from there. Too much is at stake to abandon the railway, as No. 41 bus now winds through Biddenham and Bromham villages meaning a longer journey duration, off-putting and detrimental to commuting, work and visiting opportunities. Dualling the A428 will create brownfield for development, but where will those commuters drive to catch a train? Bedford and Milton Keynes, informing demand for massive parking provision. The conflict is inherent in the design plan. Ill thought out, opportunistic, call it what we may, short-termism is the name of the game. We have to think medium term even as we hand over to a new generation who hopefully will take up the baton for this strategic link. We lack the resources, bigger fry needs to be involved like the National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) but the danger with quangos is that they get lost in bureaucracy, bigger projects or the politics rather than delivery of small to medium sized projects which could revolutionise local public transport, mobility and rejuvenate town centres. Out of town sink estates beit for jobs, housing and education are mopping up the numbers game, but at what cost to town centres, the environment and real wealth creation than whittling down fossil fuel reliance and geo-politics and wars to procure them? This is what the media ignore opting for focus’ on President Trump which although entertaining is somewhat ‘out there’ and takes away focus’ on the closer to home issues beit NHS crisis’, gridlock and bad air pollution to our focus’ of remedial actions to reduce and prevent these nasties from exacerbation.

Good news is that our association is growing and we hope to grow our team to ensure more fronts can be worked on as the old phrase goes “neither be too heavenly minded to be any earthly good nor too earthly entrenched to keep a heavenly vision”. Action starts with individuals. It is the case some have more time than others, others more money than time. It is often the odd hour stashed there and the odd donation given there which we both can capitalise on and produces best results all things being considered. Everyone can play a role and give support. Thank you.

Yours sincerely,

Richard Pill

ERTA Principal Officer.

For further information and who to write to:

https://www.milton-keynes.gov.uk/planning-and-building/planning-policy/olney-neighbourhood-plan

New Trains, New-Reopened Local Railways and who pays?

New Trains, New-Reopened Local Railways and who pays?

Late in the day! But beit Vivarail, Parry People Movers or Light-weight revisited - they need to coincide with a regional plan and agenda for re-railing places not just service branch line stock renewals. Maldon Branch, Stansted - Braintree, Northampton-Brackmills P&R - here they flounder and leave it to others - they must be challenged - Colonel Stephens had his track and trains! 

See: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/no-frills-mini-trains-offer-route-to-reopening-lines-that-beeching-shut-qtcwpbrzh

and visit: https://ertarail.com/campaigns/ Ideas of where those tracks and 'new' trains may wish to go!

What makes for cohesion?

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

ERTA past newsletters can be downloaded freely as pdfs on our website: https://ertarail.com/campaigns/

Our rail schemes matter to us because we know how much they could bring to regenerative effect on local people and places and lessen the bads. We find a parochialism in some parts which is a bit too introverted whilst we have other professionals behind the scenes making much ado about community cohesion quests. Parish, Borough, Constituency, County and Nation-wide-ism are all tiers and added aspects of a whole. If they have a drawbridge attitude how can a coming together be informed? 

These reopenings affect a wide arc of Oxford-Cambridge and London-Leicester but the principles are transferable to other areas too. Happily other areas (some) are picking up the baton and seeking reopening of their local closed rail links and if that means deviations and new pieces of railway so beit.

We have HS2 given the go ahead now and in some ways the real work continues. It's claim to create capacity remains to be seen. If a transfer of travel patterns whereby for a few minutes saved and (more cost?) people flock to it between let's say Birmingham and London in commuting terms it may free up seats on existing Birmingham - Euston lines although the planned developments along the existing corridors and the new brownfield created will fill those up quick enough. But if HS2 is not going to take much except very dedicated and particular types of freight, the existing lines will bear the brunt in absorbing the many new freight to rail depots spirnging up along the Thames Estuary for example - they will use existing tracks and may find that frustrated due to other competing service demand. So there is a role to compulsorily purchase and move blockages from the Great Central South of Leicester to the East-West Rail (in Buckinghamshire) and Aylesbury/Old Oak Common to provide not just more track capacity for growth but also to alleviate both the M1 and M40 arterys. Those who say it will cost must think about £55 billion for HS2 and £3.5 billion for an East-West Road - yet yet another when what we have is crying out for a rail alternative. It is not about whether there's a categorical promise to fund the lot or not, it is whether given so many other needs beit health, elderly care, welfare or education - we are using what funds we may possess wisely and whether or not overseas real estate buy-in/capital could better be re-directed by Government to invest in smaller localised line reopenings and new rolling stock whereby we return to a train which does a load of things in one go. 

The Guard reassuring passengers, giving out information, selling tickets, ensuring safety, the Guard's Van designed into modern rolling stock for bikes, prams, pushchairs, buggies, parcels, post and maybe even the odd pallet load. Likewise making better use of the railway stations we have - a post office and health hub for every station serving a population over 20, 000 people. Now that's a vision and a plan to make more. We got larger stations like St Pancras to have more shopping and leisure built into it, now we need trains and railways doing more at the centre of communities, plugging gaps, providing services where people go regularly and turning derelict buildings into meaningful, purposeful engagement with the nation's needs. There's an opportunity. But if free or internal markets or competition services to diminish service ethics or costs more, we need to be equally as persnickety  as has been on supposed 'waste' in public funded services. Suffice to say in Bedford, the retraction and quasi privatisation of the Civil Service resulting closure of local offices has robbed the area of clerical/office jobs and the model has now transferred to banks, hiding behind a supposed take up in digital on-line banking (insecure) to closing branches in smaller towns including Kempston (Nat West) Bedford. This disenfrachises customers and if it saves a business cash it is either take up of on-line or real estate savings, can it be both coincidentally happening at one and the same time?

Suffice to say bus and rail stations could become community hubs to cater for these integrated services and hold up the path of accessibility for a swathe of population who neither trust nor want total digitalisation and on-line for everything and prefer people interaction and actual person-hood accountability. The Prime Minister cannot be everywhere or do everything, but accountable local managers can do their bit, get rid of them to the internet and it is lost and communities are poorer. So more local railways and local stations can do more, we need more of them, enter the work ERTA seeks to make a contribution with.

Yours sincerely,

Richard Pill

ERTA. 

01-03-2017