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Olney Phonebox article for Jan 2001
BRTA & The Bedford-Olney-Northampton Railway
In my last article on the Bedford-Olney-Northampton Rail link I wrote a little bit about the problems, which stare us in the face as we contemplate the prospect of reopening. Indeed, there are individuals who go around giving talks to say that reopening will never happen! BRTA and myself of course beg to disagree, and why? The reasons are numerous! Here are just a few of the more strategic reasons:
Why Try and Reopen a Bedford-Olney-Northampton Rail Link?
East West Rail - the current scheme is to revive East West Rail Links between Oxford-Milton Keynes-Bedford-Sandy. These restored rail links will provide a variety of journey opportunities but as they currently stand, Northampton (population of approx. 198,000 people) will be out on a limb. Bedford-Northampton would plug it into the East West travel opportunities.
Bedford - Milton Keynes - Northampton Development Triangle - Bedford-Olney-Northampton is the missing side. New high tech industries, jobs and creation of prosperity are being investigated. BRTA believes the rail link should be included in any future growths from day one, but it is needed to revive the local rural economy anyway. The triangle will be unsustainable without adequate rail choice infrastructure from day one. Let’s provide adequate choice to get excessive levels of cars and lorries off the local roads.
East West Traffic - the A428, A45 and particularly the A14 trunk roads are all parallel to the corridor the Bedford-Olney-Northampton rail link would provide, giving relief end to end, taking cars and lorries off these roads, reducing congestion, parking pressures, exhaust pollution, accidents and wasted time and money. CBI figures show that congestion costs British Industry some £16 billion per year, these costs are passed on to you, the consumer!
Travel journeys - by rail from Bedford (and points North, South and East) to Northampton, Rugby, Coventry, NEC/Birmingham International & Birmingham/West Midlands and the West Coast Mainline (WCML). Likewise rail access from Northampton & points north and west to Bedford for connections to Midland Mainline for Luton, Luton Airport, St Albans, London, Thameslink for Southern England, St Pancras for future connections to Heathrow and EuroStar trains to Paris & Brussels.
Direct access - as part of a cross country east west semi fast train service to Bedford and Eastwards to East Anglia (Peterborough, Stevenage, Cambridge, Norwich, Ipswich, Stansted Airport & East Coast Ports and resorts.
Completion of the East West rail ‘knowledge corridor’ - linking Oxford, Cambridge, De Montfort, Nene and Open Universities with each other by rail.
Bringing Olney and 4 mile catchment of satellite villages (population of 10,000) back onto the national rail network - current nearest rail station is a 10 mile drive. An expanding town needs good public transport services to nearby larger conurbation’s such as Bedford and Northampton and better buses to Milton Keynes. Olney has a unique character and history and wants to retain its uniqueness and thriving collection of small businesses rather than just become a dead dormitory dwelling estate as part of some larger urban sprawl. The rail link will help bring the tourists and visitors minus their cars and thus help keep the town ‘alive’.
Provide the strategic basis for a network of rural feeder link buses - and make Olney a North/South/East West rail and bus interchange, reducing rural isolation and car dependency/fuel costs.
Provide a strategic capacity provision for freight to go by rail - reducing pressure on existing lines (WCML/MML link), providing new direct and therefore cheaper rail option for businesses to/from East Anglia and West Midlands and helping to both attract local businesses to integrate their freight movements between road and rail as well as reduce lorry movements down strategic arteries such as A14, A428, A45 and M1 (eg: Northampton-Luton).
Complement the existing East West Rail scheme - its viability, its sustainability and putting Bedford and Northampton at the heart of East West communication rather than on the edge of it.
Surely all this merits further research and exploration? Surely all this means that at the very least retaining the option of rebuilding and reopening a Bedford-Olney-Northampton rail link should be retained for the future?
However, apart from the above reasons why we believe local authorities need to get together and jointly pay for a proper feasibility study to explore and assess the business case and credentials of this strategic missing rail link further, BRTA is very committed to ensuring that a local dimension is retained at all times and at all levels of thinking, planning and integration. For example, the issue of local bus services. By themselves rural buses need subsidies to keep going, buses pounding the gap between Bedford and Northampton along the A428 will continue to happen because many villages are away from the railway corridor. However a reopened railway with a proper park and ride station just north of Olney, a network of linking village shuttle style buses could operate with the railway just giving them that commercial boost in terms of patronage needed, in order to sustain a more comprehensive and more frequent distributor network. Furthermore a bus service could link Olney with Lavendon, Turvey and Harrold, another going westwards along the A428 to link villages of Yardley Hastings, Denton and Brayfield on the Green, away from Olney and the railway corridor into the railway station.
Likewise a Milton Keynes-Olney-Wellingborough coach link would make a useful north/south link and interchange with the east/west railway. The crowning glory of this vision is that it puts Olney at the centre of transport planning, thinking and integration and thus underpins Olney’s strategic importance as a local market town. These developments would boost the local economy and make rural isolation less of a problem, giving more freedom for a variety of age groups to be less reliant upon the restrictions of the car for every journey. Families should remember that one day their children will grow up and very likely want to go to university, far away from home; having a local railway station where people can easily be picked up and dropped off at their leisure and pleasure, would make much more sense than the 10 mile drive to the nearest station as at present.
Thanks to a successful meeting BRTA now has a dedicated sub committee committed to seeking the way forward to getting this railway reopening taken seriously and supported at all levels. We need a steady stream of members, volunteers, donations and offers of support to be enabled to do this. BRTA is a voluntary non party political campaign pressure group and is entirely voluntary.
Richard Pill
BRTA & Sub Committee Campaigns Co-ordinator.
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