Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2014-12-06 23:20:05 - Graham Ellis
The train service from Westbury to Swindon, via Trowbridge, Melksham and Chippenham links Wiltshire's major urban communities with one another, and with places beyond. Early results from analysing the survey from mid October 2014 show well over 100 source and destination stations, and also show a majority of users didn't have the alternative option of driving. So these new services - running just a year - are already making a significant difference. Passenger numbers are good too, with journey numbers very much towards the upper end of what we might predicted, even in the most optimistic of moods.
A major part of why the service has done so well is that everyone has been working well together. Wiltshire Council, First Great Western, the Department for Transport ... and been supported by community volunteers and community groups. We also enjoy excellent support from politicians from all the political parties that have significant representation in the area. They agree that the service makes a significant positive difference for the area, and for its voters, standard and style of living and future. That cross-party support is something we cherish, as looking back a few years there were politicians elected in Wiltshire who considered that helping us meet our aspirations (as they then were) wasn't worthwhile, and indeed would be wasteful of resources.
The constitution of the TransWilts Community Rail Partership (in common with other CRP constitutions) very clearly states that we are not a political body, and that also applies to the Melksham Railway Development Group. That cannot mean that we don't engage with politicians - but rather that we work with them all equally and in balance, and don't get involved above and beyond the direction and constitutional objectives of the groups. "Equallity" and "Balance" are difficult things to define, though - indeed I'll contend that you can't have "equallity" between several inherantly different backgrounds; our MP, who represents the Liberal Democrat Party has been superbly supportive and indeed without Duncan Hames I doubt we would have seen the service improvements. He's rightly representing the area in Westminster, and the other government party (the Conservatives) are campaigning hard in the area, as "Chippenham" was a marginal seat at the last election, and goodness only knows what will happen next May.
Policies of other political parties in the area may not be quite so supportive. A former Wiltshire Councillor from Melksham who stood for one of these parties at a by-election (and failed to win) was a strong advocate of "private cars for all" to the exclusion of any support for public transport. At the other extreme there are those who advocate full state oweneship and control of public transport; that's not so clearcut as to whether it's positive or negative in terms of local travel plans and the elements of the Transwilts - but for sure it would be a big shakeup if implemented, and at the current time what the TransWilts needs is stable uniform support from all around, "above politics", as we go through our three years of a trial service.