Present: Dennis Fancett (Chair), John Earl (Sec), Richard Hilton (Treasurer), Ken Allott, John Brierley, Trevor Watson, Colin Patmore, Adrian King.

Apologies: Ronald Hunt, Gordon Barclay.

1. Minutes of last meeting agreed.
   
2. AGM.
   It was felt that there were reasonable numbers considering the late withdrawal of our main speaker, Denis Murphy MP. The room was full which is always good. Some thought the substitute speaker, John Nicholson of Northumberland County, was let off lightly – others that we had given him food for thought on one or two matters he said County would at least look at again.
   
3. News, updates, progress.
   

   ABT line:
   At Westminster, Minister Tom Harris had “said nothing, but he said nothing negative either.” Dennis` feeling was that this was a positive meeting. Present were Dennis, Dave Ledger and Dave Marshall of the North East Assembly and Denis Murphy MP. For the future, an ominous note was that the NE Assembly was to be abolished, and these are the people who have been pushing the idea. Responsibilities are going to One North East, though it is possible that the overview of transport in the region might go to Nexus. In the light of savings to the Northumberland budget with the projected closure of the District Councils, Dennis wrote to Peter Hillman the new Leader asking him whether he could commit anything more to the ABT plan. Response – we may in future put the ABT as a higher priority in the Local Transport Plan, but we “can`t commit the new authority to anything at present.” Ken felt that a new authority would need a new policy.
   Dennis was going to a meeting next week which would consider all Northumberland rail projects – held by NE Assembly. Where will £4.1m needed to rebuild come from? More benefits would have to be demonstrated, or it might be dropped. Phase 1 to Bedlington may not hit the benefits as much as 1A to Ashington, the regenerative benefits there being that much higher. Trevor mentioned a plan to redevelop Ashington football ground as part of regeneration of Ash. town centre, and suggested the station plan might be linked in some way. Agreed to keep a watching brief, but also pushing our ideas through the exhibition and leaflets. At Choppington the support was good, some were anti at Bedlington rather surprisingly; exhibition currently at Hirst.
   

   CrossCountry:
   No surprise at the decision, as Arriva`s was definitely the best presentation. When the franchise was announced, Dennis had sent them a letter, and there was a positive response on the idea of an early meeting on bus integration. We need to watch developments – they might try to speed up times to Edinburgh which may threaten our stops, or we could drop back to 2 trains. They would start on 11th Nov. Reaction was mainly positive, and it was possible that Arriva had an answer to the capacity problem – i.e. revert to some use of HSTs.
   

   East Coast Main Line:
   Dennis produced a large volume from Martin Murphy which was the Route Utilisation Strategy. Ken had glanced at it and felt that most of its discussions related to the route up to Doncaster; other issues discussed related to items such as bringing back use of the Leamside line for diversions – either way, it was felt that a Railfutures submission would probably deal with any of our issues. Dennis reiterated the clear statement by a senior Railtrack official in York last year that “we have no capacity problems north of Newcastle.” It was hoped nevertheless that not everything would be sacrificed to faster speeds to Edinburgh. Dennis mentioned the strong possibility that the ECML might be treated as two parts by the incoming franchisees – an over-capacity line south of York, but a line with much more flexibility north of that, so timetabling might be more creative as a result. All felt that the GNER timetable had “oddities” and could be improved upon, hopefully to Morpeth`s advantage. A remark that Lincoln was being looked at more seriously gave weight to the idea that there might be more options in future. Once again, the issue of why freight is not diverted via Leamside came up, and whether there were likely to be problems ahead because National Express had paid more than GNER for the franchise despite GNER not being able to meet the payments – there was a feeling that this was more about the parent company Sea Containers going bust than about the capacity of the ECML to deliver that sort of surplus if well run.
   

   Morpeth station issues:
   There was a report of a flurry of activity in the station after the recent negative publicity on its facilities, with rumours that something might be underway or at least planned, but no confirmation as yet. There was still a chance that car parking charges might be imposed if the car park was enhanced, but people still felt that this would be counterproductive. There was a need to push Northern again on getting someone in the office in the afternoons.
   Cramlington – new direction notices were an improvement. Dennis would write to Nexus concerning coming closures of Metro between Monument and Jesmond, asking for replacement buses to go through to Central Station.
   

4. John reported continuing problems in getting existing members to send in subscriptions, though new memberships were still healthy – 94 members reported now, though defaults meant that £235 was missing from accounts. John suggested putting in an sae to make the process as easy as possible – opinion was divided on this as to an extent it was sending good money after bad. It was agreed to wait a couple of weeks to see what came in, then send out targeted letters to defaulters, who may just have forgotten. Either way, any kind of fundraising was obviously going to be useful – a number of ideas such as a model railway show and a Community Rail Day were suggested, John and Richard to research the former and Dennis to look into the latter. It was agreed that we should pool ideas in time to apply for funding for publicity etc. to CMBC Community Fund in early November.
   
5. Meetings: Agreed to ask Alan Wells (historian of the Blyth and Tyne) for a possible meeting in November in Choppington Welfare – John to check speaker, Dennis to check venue. Meeting in March still undecided.
   
6. Date of next committee meeting: Monday 5th Nov. Other meetings to send representatives: Dennis to NE Assembly next week, John to Edinburgh for Arriva meeting on 1st. Oct., Richard to York for Rail Passenger Council on 27th.Oct. Agreed to explore cheapest options.
   

John Earl, Secretary, 17.9.07