Monthly Archives: November 2013

- Cycles and Cycling, Buses, Council reports, Gritting, Ipswich Hospital, Locality Budget, Rail, Roads, Surgery, Transport, Uncategorized, Volunteers, Your councillor

What’s been happening in Suffolk, October 2013

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This month’s report has a lot to do with a number of different forms of transport: rail, road, bus AND cycle – and also has a sentence in Anglo-Saxon embedded in it:

Greater Anglia Cycle ‘consultation’  Greater Anglia’s draft cycle strategy consultation finished on 1 November. It worried a number of people – from intercity commuters, to public health officers, to those involved in tourism to your average working godger.  And me (needless to say).

Details were nebulous but  it seemed  (when you cut through seemingly deliberately unspecific verbiage) that the rail company was proposing to remove cycles from an unspecified number of their trains – up to and including all of them – preferring people to keep bicycles at each end of their daily journey or to use Greater Anglia’s own version of Boris bikes at an extra cost of £3.80 a day.

The impact of this would be felt by all cycle rail users, but most particularly those with fewer choices: those using the trains from stops in in rural areas, second-class passengers, those with complex journeys, and of course the young and less affluent.

Suffolk travellers would be particularly at risk because it seems as if decisions are being proposed on the basis of the status and usage of out of-county stations (London, Norwich, Cambridge) with little concern as to the situation of the passengers who have to join or leave the trains on the interim stops in Suffolk.

I have blogged elsewhere the response I made to this consultation as your County Councillor, LD spokesperson for transport and rail-travelling cyclist

Sexual Health: Ipswich clinic  Free and timely Sexual Health care was instituted  by act of parliament in 1917 because the powers that be  – even in that pre-NHS time – recognised how important this was to the health of the whole country. Apparently there were more soldiers out of action because of untreated sexually transmitted diseases than were  wounded in action!

At the end of October, the Sexual Health clinic at Ipswich Hospital, which was purpose-built in 1991, was to close. Public health is now a county council remit. Although a number of interim measures are being instituted to ensure some continuity of services. I asked Full Council:  Can you please tell me what  facilities for immediate STI diagnosis (eg microscopy), for immediate on-site free dispensing of drugs (as opposed to by prescription collected from a pharmacist) and for co-ordination of contact tracing  Public Health is ensuring are put in place in the immediate aftermath of closure?

I was assured that these will continue at the hospital for the immediate future.

Park & Ride Ipswich Buses have taken back the running of the Ipswich Park & Ride services  at Martlesham and Copdock. Passengers will even  have access to free wi-fi as they travel.  Park and ride tickets will also  be valid on other services run by the company in the town. I consider this to be excellent news. If they decide to reopen the Bury Road park and Ride – as I have been calling for, since its incomprehensible and foolish closure – it will be even better news.

However  I have been contacted by a local parish councillor who asks if it is still correct that the County Council underwrites these services by over  £600,000 pa, pointing out that if this is the case, the business rate payers of  the rest of Suffolk are ‘giving Ipswich businesses a handout’ . He further adds that every P & R  bus journey needs a minimum of 20 passengers to offset the equivalent environmental impact of cars etc.. I am inquiring about this.

Tolling the A14? Suffolk County councillors are more or less united in criticism  of  government proposals to toll the A14. At full council,  the SCC administration accepted my party’s view that years of underinvestment in Suffolk railways has left us with rail services from Ipswich to Cambridge and Peterborough which fall well short of what is required for effective day-to-day operation and amended their motion on A14 tolls accordingly. Although there are government plans for a number of enhancements to the UK road network,  the A14 improvement scheme is the only one with an inbuilt plan for tolling. A s – in its current state – the rail system is unable to provide a viable  alternative to a tolled A14, it makes any decision to toll doubly unfair, because there isn’t the capacity for a reliable public transport alternative .

Anglo-Saxon Attitude  Suffolk County Councillors received an impromptu lesson in Anglo Saxon from Lib Dem group leader Dave Woods, when they agreed to name the Council Chamber ‘King Edmund’s Chamber’. (King Edmund ruled  East Anglia from about 855 until he was killed by the Danish Great Heathen Army in 869AD. He was initially patron saint of Suffolk,  but then went on to become patron saint of England, before being deposed by St George.)

While the other group leaders described Suffolk’s  Anglo Saxon patron saint in terms of his geographical location, origin and community spirit,  Cllr Wood quoted the maxim by which King Edmund lived:  Gif þu eart to heafodmen geset, ne ahefe þu ðe, ac beo betwux mannum swa swa an man of him (which, roughly translated means:  If you become a ruler, don’t be puffed up, but  be amongst people as one of them.) This, said Cllr Wood, was an excellent maxim for all elected officials to live by. And after he had translated it, the other parties agreed

Continuing Complaints: Ticket Machine at Woodbridge Station I continue to have complaints from people regarding the unreliability of the ticket machine at Woodbridge station. The latest complaint (today, 6 November)  was from a constituent who told me that “this time it said it was printing the tickets and then didn’t deliver. I now have to buy some more and collect them on the train. Now there is over a £100 out of my bank account awaiting a refund for two lots of tickets. I blasted Greater Anglia but they say the machine is not theirs.”  I am raising the issue with Greater Anglia.

Locality budget: Grit bins, Benches – and possibly an Ice Rink  The latest applications from my locality budget are for grit bins, benches and potentially an ice rink to support shopping in Woodbridge at Christmas. I very much hope the latter comes to fruition as it seems an excellent idea for generating Christmas footfall.

Having started the trend for funding local gritbins from the county councillor’s locality budget,  I suspect we are the market  town in Suffolk with the most (something like 37). This is excellent . However, the system relies on the public spirit of local volunteers, who remain thin on the ground. Having myself cleared miles of snow and ice along Ipswich Road and California over the last three years I would urge all our younger and most ablebodied councillors to put their shoulder to the broom too.  Many hands make light work.

My next County Councillor’s Surgery is on Saturday 16th November  10am to midday, in Woodbridge Library. No appointment necessary, but you may have to wait at busier times

Locality Budget, Scouts

Camp fire

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Delighted to be invited to  the  1st Woodbridge Scout Group & Seckford Explorer Unit Camp Fire at Buttrum’s Mill tonight.

As you can see, it was a beauty. Scouts really know how to build good fires.

The venue also is perfect. I wonder how many towns can have a small meadow hidden in the middle?

Best of all I got a chance to see the ride-on mower I bought the scouts a couple of years back from my locality budget. Its a brilliant arrangement: the scouts mow the meadow, and the owner allows them to camp on it. And with the ride-on mower it can be done in a reasonable time, however quickly the grass grows. Its a win:win arrangement

- Cycles and Cycling, Rail, Transport

Greater Anglia’s proposed Cycle Strategy: my response

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My mobile 479Below is my response to  Greater Anglia’s  worrying proposed cycle strategy – fuller details of which can be found  here.

I am writing as SCC Lib Dem spokesperson for Transport, as County Councillor for Woodbridge, and as a constant rail user and cyclist, to respond to the Greater Anglia consultation on its proposed Cycle Strategy.

This strategy consists of a single option: proposing to remove cycles from Greater Anglia trains. Greater Anglia would prefer people to keep bicycles at each end of their daily journey or to use Greater Anglia’s own version of Boris bikes at an extra cost of £3.80 a day to the commuter.

This is an idea in which the benefits seem universally to accrue to Greater Anglia rather than to the cycling commuter.

The proposed strategy might not significantly affect the lives of some  inter-city commuters  – but only those who can comfortably afford two bikes – or the extra £3.80 a day to hire one of Greater Anglia’s Bike and Go bikes (and not worry too much about its calibre).  However, there are many travellers who do not fit this profile, and the impact on second-class passengers could be very great indeed, particularly those using the trains from stops in rural areas, those with complex journeys, and of course the young and less affluent. (For example, many young people in East Suffolk use the East Suffolk line with their BMX bikes, travelling to the skate/bike parks of Ipswich and Woodbridge.)

When it says in the document: ”there may also be options around wider use of folding cycles, provided that these are used with sensitivity for the needs of other customers“ this is hard to disambiguate. Why may there be options, and what exactly might these options be?  Currently those able to afford folding bicycles can carry them as people carry any other form of luggage. Does this mean that GA will now start treating folding bicycles as separate from any other form of luggage? How is this possible? And if so what is the status of a pram or a wheelchair?

Another issue here is that folding bicycles might well be easier for GA to carry but they are disproportionately expensive. If these are the only bicycles Greater Anglia wishes to carry, it will again discriminate against the poor and the young of Suffolk.

The consultation document refers to crowded trains from Ipswich to Cambridge, yet it fails to mention – maybe even to recognise – that many of the travellers on these trains get on and/or off at intermediate stops . The solution put forward for this overcrowding – a ‘corridor system’ -would hardly help the schoolchildren who travel with bikes from Cambridge to  intermediate stations as far as Bury St Edmunds, or those getting on the train with their bikes at BStE and Stowmarket. Yet young passengers on the 15.44 and 16.44 from Cambridge, are significant contributors to the  overcrowding on these services.  As Vice-Chair of the Suffolk Educational Transport Appeals Committee, I am concerned that a change of bike policy here may cause knock-on issues for pupil transport.

The other route that is specifically mentioned in this document as overcrowded  is the Intercity Norwich to London service. Again, the document fails to mention that few travellers on these trains are through passengers; most are making smaller journeys  – and that their  bicycles are in the guard’s van, not in the carriages. These intercity trains are often very crowded in the second-class carriages and the convenient fiction that bicycles are responsible for overcrowding cannot apply.  Does this mean that Greater Anglia is planning to do away with the guard’s van on future intercity trains without providing other accommodation for bicycles?

Overcrowding being the stated problem, Greater Anglia says “Unfortunately, it is not a simple matter to provide additional carriages.”   Why is it not a simple matter to provide additional carriages? It is a simple matter in many other countries. And GA is happy elsewhere to refer selectively to practices in other countries when it supports its argument. Perhaps another franchisee might find it easier.

The document goes on to say that Greater Anglia’s “ priority is to provide seated or standing accommodation for passengers.” I am assuming it mentions ‘standing accommodation’ because so many second class passengers have no other option on Greater Anglia trains due to lack of sufficient rolling stock. However it is very worrying that neither luggage space nor accommodation for prams or wheelchairs are mentioned here. Is Greater Anglia going to continue to provide these?  If so, why not accommodation for bicycles too? For people with certain serious disabilities (such as epilepsy), a bicycle is the equivalent of a wheelchair.

I have concerns that in many places the wording of this document is used to obscure Greater Anglia’s intentions. For example the phrase:“Our objective for the medium to long term is therefore to reduce the carriage of cycles on trains by stimulating behavioural change.” If GA means that it is not going to carry cycles it should say so directly! Prohibition is not, and never will be the same thing as “stimulating behavioural change. “ And if GA means it intends only to ban cycles on some services, it should be equally upfront. The wording of this consultation suggests no such thing!

Similarly the document goes on to say “We believe the options are to take a ‘corridor approach,” but there are no other options. This sentence should more accurately read “We intend to take a corridor approach”

My greatest concerns however are about the rationale for Greater Anglia’s proposed strategy, which is fundamentally flawed. The argument for the ‘corridor approach’ is based on the following:

  • that every train only travels from point a to point b – forgetting all the stations in between. Yet, as I mentioned above, most train journeys are not like this
  • that train travellers are affluent cyclists who are happy to invest in a second bike, or rent one of Greater Anglia’s rather than retain their own when travelling. I would argue that most train travellers would fall outside this specification for one reason or another
  • it ignores the concept of all train journeys which involve travelling onwards in transport-poor areas. Rural Suffolk is one vast transport-poor area.
  • When likening the British situation to Europe GA is comparing apples and pears.  GA’s rationale totally ignores the fact the rest of Europe didn’t have a  Dr Beeching and that therefore it is possible for people elsewhere in Europe to travel by rail closer to their destination  than we can in rural Suffolk. Much of Europe has good and properly integrated bus services too.  Rural Suffolk has neither.

GA tells us that its proposed corridor  “will require considerable resolve on the part of our company and all of our stakeholders if it is to become the norm in this country.”  But why on earth should it become the norm in this country? After all, what is in this proposal for anyone but the Abiello shareholders? It is particularly poor that such a suggestion should arise at just the time when Suffolk Public Health is encouraging people out of their cars and onto more sustainable forms of transport. A car, after all, is the ideal solution to the difficulties  Greater Anglia’s proposals would create.

Wouldn’t it be better if a cheap reliable cycle-transporting rail network would become the norm in this country. That really WOULD require resolve on the part of the company!

We are currently in a situation where most (if not all) second class carriages are very crowded in rush hour. I am not convinced that Greater Anglia have been thinking divergently when they have looked at the problem. Instead  they seem to be making the carriage of bicycles a convenient scapegoat for  years of under-investment and a lack of forward planning for  rail services in Suffolk.

This strategy is fatally flawed. It would be more appropriate if Greater Anglia stopped making this link between overcrowding and insufficient rolling stock on the one hand, and carriage of bicycles on the other hand and tackled each issue independently.

It is admirable that Greater Anglia should intend to improve cycle parking and provide BikeandGo services at some of its stations, but not if these are at the expense of such passengers as wish or need to take their bicycles with them on the train.