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Community Transport - Pewsey, Taunton, and the whole picture too

Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2012-10-06 22:58:27 - Graham Ellis

Just a week into October ... and yet so much has happened already ... it's the meeting season. On Rail / transport alone, two meetings in a week.

I travelled up to Pewsey on Thursday evening, and attended a packed meeting in the Church Hall. Pewsey currently has 19 trains per day calling at the station there, and the new Great Western franchise bid requests a minimum of 19 as well. The train users, and others with an interest in the area, are concerned that there is no requirement on the operator of the next franchise to run trains to any particular final destination; they fear this means that trains could be cut back to a "nightmare scenario" of a Newbury to Westbury shuttle service. Similar fears are held at Bedwyn, where the current service from London Paddington terminates, and at Westbury where current calls by long distance trains add significantly to the time those trains take between London and Devon. Most of the attendees at the meeting were newcomers to the 'rail campaign' scene, concerned that they had missed the consultation at the start of this year, a little upset that it had not been brought to there attention, and wondering "what can / should we do?" and "are our fears the correct ones to have?" See [here] for my comments, and [here] for their web site.


And on Saturday, I travelled to Taunton for the meeting of TravelWatch SouthWest. Rather the opposite of the Pewsey crowd (but equally well attended). Here you have a representative of each of the established groups, coming together with governmental (local authority) and rail industry experts - both as attendees and as speakers. This is a really good opportunity for both "side" to meet and discuss things. And I use the words "sides" advisedly, since we're all really on the same side. At times, it's oh so easy to overlook the common objective of a sensible, efficient, cost effective, customer friendly, well connected, well marketing, environmentally friendly and local economy friendly travel system that Joe Public wants to use and about which he can find information easily.


I welcome the new impetus and inputs from Pewsey; I think there's a real need for the customer of the big travel providers to stand up and say "why X", "we like Y", and "can we have Z", whilst at the same time being as well informed as possible into the reasons behind current operations and issues, and why some changes are more practical than others for the future. This is the whole ethos of "Community Rail", but it's extended beyond one line, and beyond one mode, into "Community Transport".