Olney Battle - Support 'flat as a pancake'! Need big business to turn up and demand rail access!

Bedford-Northampton Rail Link: A new railway is needed, but may never serve Olney again!

Everything is in an economy of scale. If a big enough backer/s or consortium decides it wants a new rail link between Bedford/Midland Main Line and Northampton/West Coast Main Line Loop then they will study the lie of the land, decide the best course of action and set about doing it. Thus, the obliterations at Olney including new encroachments at Lavendon Road are poised to offer two solutions either 1. "here's the cheque, move" or 2. bypass Olney. If the railway goes north of the sewage works it will have to clear for juggernauts crossing the A509 at height out of a cutting from the top of a hill. To then go across fields (current status) to swing towards joining the trackbed somewhere east of Clifton Reynes, more like Newton Blossomville has to be pitted with a go north easterly from Castle Ashby lands around Piddington and go north of Lavendon and Turvey to join the old formation west of the Stevington Walk? It is a new 10 mile stretch of railway out of 21.5 miles of reconstructed railway. East-West, if not using the old formation, will be up to 20+ miles of new railway and so this region is to become physically familiar with reconstruction and new construction of local rail and so the model is proven and can be adopted and cascaded elsewhere. The credentials for Bedford-Northampton are long proven, Brighton/Cambridge to Bedford and Northampton to Birmingham and WCML Networks, Bedford-Northampton is the given growth, these trends will exacerbate, so all should be committed to keeping their options open, even Milton Keynes Council and jurisdiction. Alas they seem to have a back door 'treat Bedford-Northampton as development expedient' and chuck every developers whim at blocking it, by default of course, deliberation the jury is out!

Feeds east-west rail and Midland Main Line, relieves north-south rails considerably and cuts cross country saving time and cost, cutting congestion (A14 Inc.) and ensuring good end to end joined up rail alternatives to car culture and drive everywhere with queues for parking price managed ratcheting up everywhere because demand outstrips supply/land use conflict - do we provide housing, employment or parking - a no brainer x 3 options for same spaces often in urban areas or on urban fringes. ERTA calls for people to join and offer to help out. We're into the business of spreading the load, taking responsibility collectively and sharedly and together we increase chances of success and contrast privatised, selfish individualism and arm chair critics pouring cold water, need to reconcile with the problems on the roads, the air pollution killing people and many an accident partly underscored by the stresses and tensions around driving these days. This, when for a small sum, the wear and tear costs saved through rail alternatives could inform a more generous rolling out of a bus and rail pass for off peak travel for under 65's which would ensure more off-peak services are used and more lifestyle greener choices become more readily available. This, especially for lower income brackets for whom a vehicle on the road is a labyrinth of cost and responsibility when they just wish to be more mobile within limited fiscal means. Oddly bus networks are being slashed due to inadequate funding and inability to subsidise them, usage falls are mooted still, but the humbug is £billions are found annually for more and larger roads with pedestrians, cyclists and slower movers being brushed aside at design and actuation of schemes designed for speed rather than inclusion. Join our free email loop: richard.erta@gmail.com or go to our website: https://ertarail.com/ and have a perusal/make a contribution beit membership or a free-will donation. It all helps us help others. Thank you. Bedford-Northampton is not 'dead' it is sleeping and a new dawn awakens beckons with entrepreneurship, leadership, vision and a fresh start.

Development encroachment on the old trackbed and realignment seems the only option but for compulsory purchase. 

Bedford-Cambridge let's have the origional route as an option!

https://eastwestrail.co.uk/haveyoursay

Please engage with nthe consultation and give your general support. Contrast their suggested routes to ours.

March-Spalding 11th hour appeal

Dear Colleagues,

A recent housing application at Cowbit threatens to obliterate the trackbed of the former March-Spalding rail corridor which survived all closures of the 1960's until 1981. This rail link, with over 30 years of growth is needed now as never before with the benefits it would offer of:

1. Commuting/employment to/from Cambridge and Stansted Airport from South Lincolnshire

2. Inward visitorship, footfall and spend on the back of diverse access being improved

3. More passengers and freight by rail, de-cluttering local roads, cutting waste and costs which congestion without alternatives locks in.

For these reasons and more the English Regional Transport Association (ERTA) believes that we must tailor development around not on top of trackbeds. That a study should be commissioned to look at the benefits for the areas it would serve of railway reopening albeit with modest deviations where blockages have been allowed to encroach the old route. For example at the Spalding end, could a new freight depot at Deepening St Nicholas also double up as a spur access to and from the Doncaster-Spalding-Peterborough line given the old junction nearer Spalding is now under housing? Likewise at Whitemoor, the existing and campaigned for reopening March-Wisbech line could have a twin track set of points off of it onto the Spalding lines clearing the Prison which was built soon after closure on the old trackbed. 

The new duck and up flyover plan at Peterborough North is laudable but for freight to and from East Anglia to Doncaster and further afield it is a great way round, timely and uncompetitive surely contrast the option to restore the direct rail route for boosted benefits on and off the railway including more employment and sustainable jobs?

I would, on behalf of ERTA like to ask for your support for forming a consortium to pool resources and bid for funds for a full blown feasibility study and to ensure planning authorities tailor development and inform a new policy of trackbed and deviation space protection. That does not have to be dormancy amidst rising demand, rather could be green spaces, linear park, cycle-walk-way spaces which could be slewed or redesigned in the event of the railway being restored. With Brexit informing a context of uncertainty, surely it is prudent to keep our local, strategic options open in a competitive world?

I welcome your further kind interest. Thank you.

Yours sincerely,

Richard Pill

ERTA Officer.

https://ertarail.com/english-regions/

Spalding Voice newspaper coverage 17-01-2019 - unsure where they get 'John' from when they knew it was 'Richard' likewise we stressed March-Spalding via Cowbit, so why throw in Wisbech on this occiaision?! Apart from that, good piece.

If people support this rail link you can do the following:
a. Join ERTA - see our website
b. write to South Holland District Council, South Holland District Council
Council Offices, Priory Road, Spalding, Lincolnshire, United Kingdom
PE11 2XE
c. Write to local MP Sir John Hayes MP, Office 1, Broad Street Business Centre, 10 Broad Street, Spalding, PE11 1TB

Tel: 01775 711534, Fax: 01775 713905, Email: davieshm@parliament.uk

d. Write to letters page in support see Spalding Voice Newspaper www.spaldingvoice.co.uk
You may want a purist approach of every dot of old route, you may support a pragmatic stance of deviations to avoid conflict or you may just support the idea and principle and agree any railway is better than none and leave the detail to a study - which needs to be campaigned for:
- route protection
- deviation space like at Cowbit
- study
- pooling resources
- forming a consortium
- getting councils on board and other agencies/organisations
All needs a growing and dedicated team, ERTA is acting to bridge the gaps and forge that team, delegate and appoint area reps anbd get the show on the rails! Please join us and give it your support without qualification until is it happening, not being built on and then being academic even as roads clog up, land is lost and swathes of people are being socio-economically disenfranchised. Let's retain choice objectively for all.

We applaud this letter and thank the local MP for taking an interest.

Support the ERTA Great Central Revival Plan

14 January 2018

Press Release

The English Regional Transport Association (ERTA) is a voluntary based pro public transport membership association and membership and support is open to all. We are aware that capacity on existing north-south rail lines is reaching a critical point of constraint and motorways like M1 and M40 for example are often clogging up with long delays which costs us all. Therefore, we believe something extra is needed. Birmingham may get HS2 but Coventry and Rugby – what do they get? We can’t turn the clock back, like our Victorian ancestors we need to start with a blank sheet and work out what can reasonably be done and recovered for reviving the rail corridor dormant between Leicester (Narborough) – Rugby-Calvert where the new railway would link into lines to Oxford via Bicester and beyond and also lines to Aylesbury and beyond to Heathrow and Guildford for example. This could be useful for more passengers and freight to go by rail and Rugby stands to gain.

ERTA has produced a report which seeks to acts as an appetiser, putting the outline of what we think may be possible and courting backers in the business and other community to come together and support it where possible, either hard copy or pdf downloads on our excellent sales page on our website: https://ertarail.com/sales/  ERTA hopes to facilitate meetings in Rugby and elsewhere over this year and welcomes support. Our email loop for interested persons is richard.erta@gmail.com

End Press Release

Further contact or comment: Mr Richard Pill 01234 330090 or richard.erta@gmail.com

Help save the trackbed of the March-Spalding rail link

-------- Forwarded Message --------

Subject:	RE: H01-0871-18 at Former Station Yard & Croft House Nursery, Mill Drove South, Cowbit
Date:	Fri, 7 Dec 2018 14:51:34 +0000
From:	Polly Harris-Gorf <pharris-gorf@sholland.gov.uk>
To:	'Simon Barber' <simon4barber@gmail.com>

Dear Mr Barber

I have received your objection and have précised this in to my report. Some of your objections seem to cover broader issues than those that could be addressed by this application and I would direct you to more strategic documents such as the emerging South East Lincolnshire Local Plan which can be viewed on the Council’s website, and the Lincs County Council Strategic Transport officers. If you wish to make representations  to these and to the Local Enterprise Partnership I suggest that this is undertaken separately of your objection to this application.

Yours sincerely

Polly Harris Gorf | Principal Planning Officer| South Holland District Council

Council Offices, Priory Road, Spalding, PE11 2XE
DDI: 01775 764504

www.sholland.gov.uk

Please note that any informal officer opinion expressed by this email is without prejudice and is not binding on the Council during the consideration of any formal application.

H01-0871-18

Comments have been received on the above application via the website and have been

transferred to Ocella.

The comments are as follows:

Consultee Name:               Simon Barber

Address:                               Flat 20, Fitzherbert House Kingsmead

Date Transferred:               7th Dec 2018

Planning Officer:                Polly Harris-Gorf

Response Type:                 Objection

________________________________________________________________ 

Comments:

I am a member of the English Regional Transport Association(ERTA),which is a voluntary membership-based,pro-public transport improvement association with its main projects initially in the Bedfordshire and surrounding regional areas but its remit has since increased since several of its projects have a nation-wide positive benefit and impact. .I am writing as a member of that organisation to mention a few concerns in relation to the above-mentioned planning application. The English Regional Transport Association has a web-site that could provide useful information: http://ertarail.com I do hereby lodge an objection to this development since these new dwellings will encourage more cars which will in turn increase the congestion on the local roads. Indeed a certain number of the new occupants could be car commuters accessing employment in Spalding or perhaps places such as Peterborough which suffers from severe traffic congestion. The site also appears to encroach the old trackbed of the March - Spalding railway line which we wish to see re-opened. I call upon the Council, Strategic Planning and Transport offices including Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) to support, study, protect lands for a reopenedMarch-Spalding rail link.See The reopened rail link will enable more paths on East Coast Main Line, freeing up Peterborough for other trains, cutting Fenland traffic and linking York and Cambridge directly as a cross country Eastern England spinal route both ways including M11/A1 rail choice for more freight by rail. See https://ertarail.com/campaigns/ Yours faithfully, Simon Barber 

Write to South Holland District Council, Priory Road, Spalding, PE11 2XE and your local MP and join ERTA and strengthen our campaign. https://ertarail.com/contact-us/

Help Save the Woodhead Line from National Grid power-line intrusions

Our delegated Executive Committee Member Mr Tony Bush gave the following report to a meeting near Sheffield recently:

Contact for further support and liaison: https://ertarail.com/contact-us/

Please write to your MP c/o House of Commons, Westminster, London, SW1A 0AA and urge them to support reopening the Woodhead Railway as a matter of urgency and to call National Grid's plan in for further scrutiny and seek alternative solutions so that the integrity of the railway route is retained for future rail reopening use for passenger and freight - taking traffic off local roads, cutting congestion, lowering emissions and giving people fast choices which cost a fraction of HS3 for example. Woodhead is not just an isolated piece of railway but would link Hull/Sheffield with Manchester/Liverpool as a North Sea-Atlantic 'land bridge' helping UK be competitive on timings, transport and logistics, cutting costs and ensuring speedy deliveries. 

Guildford-Horsham is a strategic missing rail link needing rebuilding

Dear Richard and Simon,
I thought you would welcome feedback on the Redhill meeting.
There were getting on for 40 people at the meeting.
The basic reason of the Railfure meeting was to give Network Rail's 
representative, Andrew Brown, the oppotunity to give updates on  the 
progress so far and future (closure) plans for the line south of Three 
Bridges over weekends and one 9 day blockade during the February half 
term 2019.
Andrew also gave an update on the planned improvements to the North 
Downs line to achieve 3 trains per hour.
Andrew Brown gave a very good presentation, and Railfure will be 
e-mailing me with the contents of the presentation plus the notes made 
by one of their members, which I can forward if required.
I think Railfuture is different from the ERTA in that they seem to be 
keen on getting short term improvements to the network with no longer 
term plans- certainly not for re-openings.
At the end of the presentation there was the oppotunity to ask questions.
Most questions supported my view mentioned above, in that there were 
moans about inadequate bustitution, poor connecting services, badly 
informed staff, short trains, lack of fast trains to London,- the usual 
regular rail user points of view. Andrew deflected a lot of this as the 
responsibility of the train operationg companies.
There was one question asked about Network Rail's view on the BM2 line 
and re-opening Lewes to Uckfield.
Andrew commented that the business case for BM2 had not been proved and 
the re-opening of Lewes to Ukfield represented poor value for money, so 
Network Rail were not involved in that idea at the moment. He did say 
that had that link already existed, it would make managing the Brighton 
main line upgrade a lot easier as would the Arundel curve if it existed. 
This curve would mean the train diversion would not have to go down the 
Arun valley line through Horsham to Littlehampton and the back east 
along the coastal route to Brighton.( I notice the Arundel curve is not 
listed in the 33 schemes on the re-opening pamphlet.)
When my turn came to ask a question I intoduced myself as a member of 
the ERTA and took the oppotunity to outline the aims of ERTA- especially 
improving rail transport by supporting and promoting rail re-openings. I 
said the Guildford- Horsham- Shoreham re-opening long term was one of 
the ERTA aims and said to Andrew that had it never been closed it would 
have given him a double track main line from Three Brigdes to Shorehan 
via Horsham to play with in planing the engineering closures and the 
Arundel chord would not be needed. After my short speech I thought I had 
better ask my question to Andrew which was "Why is electrification of 
the Reigate- Guildford section not part of the North Downs Line upgrade 
plan".
Andrews answer was that third rail electrification, apart from short 
sections in new depots, was considered to be a serious health and safety 
risk these days and therefore unlikely to be approved. He also said 
electricification in general was now under review due improvements in 
bi-mode and battery technology and escalating costs.
Others at the meeting chipped in with comments in support of the 
Reigate- Guildford idea and the general feeling was that it was good 
idea. The Railfuture chairman said he thought the idea made 
absolutelcommon sense, with the remark that when did common sense ever 
have an influence on rail investment decisions?
I was invited to respond to Andrew's answer but I didn't want to take up 
more time as there were several others waiting to put their questions.
However my follow on comments would have been.
1/ Vast areas of the SE and lines into the West Country and north of 
London and the Underground are already third rail so why would say 15 
miles of additional third rail swing the fatalities statistcs significantly.
2/ What actually are the fatality statistics for the last year /10 years 
and does Ian Prosser's rail saftey executive have a published report on 
third rail risks?
3/ Additional journey oppotunies would be created if the Thameslink 
service planned to Reigate (the plan is for a third  platform there to 
handle the fixed formation 12 car trains) went on to Guildford. No new 
bi-mode or battery stock would be required.
It was a good and enjoyable meeting.
After the meeting finished I was askes about what the ERTA was.
I guided those interested in finding out more the the ERTA website.
Although I had all of Richard's recent attachments with me- GCR 
re-opening, the list of 33 rail re-openings, maps of connections from 
East-West south to Heathrow etc, I felt to bring this up was not right 
for the aims of Railfuture in calling the meeting.
Went from Horsham to Redhill and back on the train. No problems. The 
return journey was my first ride on the new Thameslink 12 car rolling 
stock on the new Peterborough to Horsham service.  Warm, fast but 
undoubtably designed to shift a lot of passengers at the same time.
SteveB

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