Historical root of what we face today is that post-war the closures of local railways were implemented and crippled rails ability to compete and Government deliberate investment in roads including the opening of the M1 and its extension set us on a roads reliant society, culture, transport and logistics lifestyle dependency. Now these policies are coming home to roost.
1. Congestion, hinders and wastes time, adds to costs
2. Fossil fuelled engines emit harmful pollutants which harm people and communities
3. More roads heap volumes of traffic to urban areas which lack the land capacity to cater for it all either on road space or critically, the demand for ever more land use for parking.
4. Town centres are taking a hard knock as out of town proliferates as well as on-line shopping and only better public transport links can deliver the volumes of people minus the vehicles which in turn lures people to sustain town centres.
The English Regional Transport Association (ERTA) is a voluntary membership based association seeking to move the agendas towards better public transport. We have a concern that the proposed HS2 scheme at great cost, will not provide stations for key places it passes like Calvert (new town proposed), Brackley and Southam and leaves Daventry off its radar too. From Old Oak Common (OCC) to Solihull, is about 80 miles with the brownfield creation for development of a railway, but no stations allowing access to it, which is problematic to say the least! HS2 will not cater for freight and whilst granted it may serve Birmingham, does not address that parts of the M1 regularly clog up to a stand still and given growth without remedy/choice, will get worse before it gets better. Putting it another way, if traffic crawls along at an average of 25 mph, you don't need 225 mph to be competitive!
Our call is to rebuild the old Great Central between Calvert (with a new link to the Oxford line) to Narborough linking existing Nuneaton-Leicester lines. Passenger services between Heathrow, Aylesbury, Oxford and beyond could access Leicester whilst new freight by rail from places like Bristol and Southampton could utilise the Knighton-Burton line for Derby and diaspora from there for example and East Midlands to these other place. Most of the old trackbed is still there, but realignments and new builds will be necessary where encroachments have occurred, hence our call for local councils and other organisations to work together to protect the remaining formation, even as a walk-way cum cycle-way as has happened in some places. We must keep re-railing as an option open and commit to sourcing funding to study with a view to overcome problems and re-rail as an investment in our areas, not be bogged down by mooted or actual problems and lose the vision for what we may want to achieve and rectify a great injustice inflicted on our communities.
We laud the proposal to rebuild the Northampton-Market Harborough line and wish that project well. But that is on the eastern flank of the M1, Great Central comes in on the western flank. Currently everything is planned around Birmingham/West Midlands, but without the orbital rails, it cannot cope with more traffic on the rails without capacity and we raise the question, does HS2 properly deliver the right sort of capacity? Likewise depots arise within an orbit of the centre of focus (Birmingham/West Midlands) with more road traffic pounding our roads - no we need East Midlands to be included not at Toton or Sheffield as HS2 purports, but Great Central into Leicester Midland by the aforementioned routes.
We lack the resources to commission studies or expertise to put business cases together, but respect and would collaborate with any interested parties who may be so inclined.
I attach a map and our report outlining ideas mainly. We welcome your interest and support. Lutterworth must be re-railed, M1 must be given parallel rail links. Rugby is a problematic issue, but maybe a new build could link into Rugby and West Coast Main Line via a new build serving Willoughby and Barby criss-crossing the canal corridor and link where the Northampton Loop Line and WCML meet south of Rugby by a new designed junction? Likewise with viaducts, you could go via the old route too and with realignments and modest compulsory purchases and relocations, re-rail Rugby to link with the GC where they used to intersect and have a new chord for that purpose? Currently there is little capacity on the WCML, no Southampton trains can get direct to the East Midlands, they are directed to Birmingham or elsewhere but that then focuses and concentrates lorry movements to a hub rather than share and redistribute around West and East Midlands respectively. In short you get all the traffic, few of the rail infrastructure gains. We believe this pattern is unsustainable and our Great Central call, is the best way to rectify it.
My colleague Mr Simon Barber is more than willing to meet and work with any who may support what we advocate. Our Rugby Forum is also open to all:
ERTA Rugby Forum Agenda: Rugby
Forum – Saturday 8 February, 2:00pm – Food and Social; 3:00 – 5:00pm –
Business, The Rupert Brooke, 8-10 Castle Street, Rugby, Warwickshire, CV21 2TP
If interested contact Mr Simon Barber T. 0208 940 4399,
E. simon4barber@gmail.com
1. Chairman’s Welcome
2. Apologies for Absence
3. Appointment of a Minute
Taker
4. Previous Minutes and Matters
Arising
5. The ERTA GC Scheme:
Calvert-Rugby-Lutterworth-Narborough
6. The need for route
protection and studies to make the case and solve conundrums like Rugby and
West Coast Links etc.
7. Narborough-Rugby problems
and solutions
8. Rugby – Calvert issues and
how they can be overcome
9. Appointment of Area Reps
10. HS2 Status and impact, not
compatible unless toned down, takes old GC route until Brackley, but no station
provision to access it. A conventional railway using GC corridor could.
11. How to get local, regional
and national players on board: industry, councils, professionals
12. How to grow the team/ideas
and solutions/offers
13. Any Other Business
14. Date,
Time and Place of Next Meeting (Autumn 2020)
