SENRUG AGM, Thursday 12th July, Morpeth Methodist Church

Present: Dennis Fancett, Chair; John Earl, Secretary; Richard Hilton, Treasurer, plus 25 in the audience.

Apologies: Jenny Lynn, John Talbot, Jack Martin, Martin Murphy, Ian Robertson.

1. Chairman`s introduction. Dennis mentioned the meeting to further the ABT line hopefully with the Rail Minister next week, 18th July, and introduced John Nicholson.
   
2. John Nicholson, speaker. John is the Executive Director for Public Transport Policy with Northumberland County Council, and he took us through what the County is responsible for in terms of public transport. He said that the core document was the Local Transport Plan, which needs to “nest with” the regional transport strategy. Northumberland apparently spends £20m a year improving the network in the county. There is a Community Strategy, and transport is an important part of this.
   
   
   There is a Local Area Agreement, which is an agreement with the government over the hard and fast things they will deliver. John felt that for too long Northumberland did not “punch its weight” locally or nationally; however, by the same token he felt that we would be fooling ourselves if we thought that the county could operate as an island. This meant that decisions taken at County level would not always find favour with everyone, and that transport plans made at a local level had to meet with a favourable reception at national level.
   
   
   John then went on to regional developments, and he mentioned that the government of Tony Blair was very keen on City Regions – strong city regions were intended to bridge the north-south divide. He wondered whether Gordon Brown was less keen on City Regions, in which case we might see changes locally reflecting this. There was such a thing as a Regional Economic Strategy, and transport and connectivity form a key part of the vision of this document. He felt that in future the Tyneside Passenger Transport Authority might be expanded to cover a wider area, possibly including Northumberland.
   
   
   The Eddington Report was supposed to point a way forward, but disappointingly it merely seemed to encourage better use of existing transport infrastructure. No major upgrade to railway lines was envisaged in this report, nor were there any recommendations to tackle rising road and rail demand other than road pricing. A new Local Transport Bill seemed to suggest expanded PTAs, more quality Bus Contracts, measures to improve punctuality, and local road pricing.
   
   
   John felt that the county was able to have far less influence on rail provision than bus. They were often lobbying and trying to influence things, and their brief was to “maintain and expand the level of rail services in Northumberland”. Improvements under way at present included a study commissioned on a possible station at Belford, a £1m investment in Berwick station, £150k spent on the Prudhoe Interchange, and £165,000 on major improvements to parking at Morpeth. The work on this may start by autumn.
   
3. Question: 1) Are you supportive of the Ashington, Blyth &Tyne reopening?
   
   Answer: We can support anything that has local support. However, the county council cannot give unqualified support for anything that cannot be sustained.
   
   Q.2): Do you agree that support for rail projects is also support for the environment, given that rail is calculated at ten times less environmentally harmful than other forms of transport?
   
   A: Agree 100%. The County Council is actively encouraged to seek to reduce environmental problems. We should be being proactive about e.g. use of cycles.
   
   
   Q3) Are you aware that bus and train transport is not particularly well integrated in Northumberland? Several examples were given, including the example of Morpeth, where a bus stop is provided but not used.
   
   A: the deregulated bus market does not serve us particularly well – anything that increases integration we would be in favour of.
   
   
   There followed a number of points made by the audience about poor provision relating to rail in Northumberland, all of which John promised to note and take back to his department:
   
   
   
   1. Point about stopping patterns between Morpeth and Berwick – there was a twelve-hour gap during the day, which meant that the north and south parts of the county were not effectively joined by public transport except by a two-hour bus journey.
      
   2. If the county invested more in rail, congestion on bank holidays for instance could be eased by rail and cycle provision, as in other rural counties, e.g.Norfolk. The county seems dominated by the road lobby.
      
   3. Arriva accessible buses have mostly been deployed elsewhere. Most Arriva buses are not accessible.
      
   4. There is no way for wheelchair users to access the station from Mafeking and Carlisle Park directions.
      
   5. Officers from the NCC could benefit from going to other authorities where old lines have been reopened, e.g. Nottinghamshire`s Robin Hood line, to discuss successful reopenings. Equally, the good rural transport network in Austria was mentioned, and the suggestion made that we could learn from them.
      
   6. Charge for use of cycle lockers was £20 a month, a clear disincentive to use cycles more.
      
   
   

This part of the meeting was closed by the Chairman, with grateful thanks to John for coming along and giving his time to us.

After agreement on last year`s minutes, Dennis went on to give his report. It had been a busy year, with many new things happening since our January 2006 meeting with Northern. The ticket office at Morpeth had opened in the afternoon, but the staff were at full stretch and the experiment was abandoned. We have made strong representations to Northern, and they are hopeful that future arrangements can be made. It was left to us to advertise this last time, so we are hopeful that plenty of warning will be given in future.

On the new franchises, we attended all franchise meetings for both the X-Country and ECML bids, noting that Northumberland County Council were conspicuous by their absence. Their response to the call for input to the franchise document was dilatory to say the least, and it was only a plea from Dennis that they might at least edit copy our document so that some input was forthcoming from the county that produced any response at all. He made the point that the train operating companies are not going to be very impressed by our pleas for better services if we have no apparent interest from our own county. The statutory requirement from both franchise documents is still at a baseline two trains per day, so if we want to improve on that there is much scope for Northumberland to lobby hard.

We were pleased to see the new winter Sunday service starting up, but again there was little warning and the take-up was disappointing. We had suggested more advertisement e.g. on carriage windows, if the venture runs again. Another valuable initiative was the early morning northbound train stopping at Cramlington. This means that passengers can get to Edinburgh via Morpeth by 8a.m. A help point has also been introduced at Cramlington, something we have asked for.

We have put in a lot of work on the ABT line reopening. Wansbeck Council and the North East Assembly have been very supportive, Northumberland CC rather less so, but they have put money into the feasibility study. Denis Murphy`s support had been consistent and excellent – the debate in Parliament had created a lot of useful publicity. The next step was that Denis had set up a meeting with the Rail Minister, for next Wednesday the 18th, and he was very keen that Senrug should be represented, so Dennis is to attend.

For the future, the access issue at Morpeth is still a problem. The county still has no plans for this, despite as Dennis says the northbound access being an apparently easy step; the scouts and bob-a-job week were mentioned. Again the initiative seems to be lacking; it had been pointed out that the “access for all” fund could be applied for, but it hasn`t.

Reinstatement of Manors remains a priority, as does a reinstatement of a local service to Berwick. The Nexus Ashington study had not yet reported, but when it did, it was hoped that the timetable for the ABT line would remain the same and that the aims of the two studies would not clash.

Comments:

1. Ronald reported a nice comment from a lady from Rotherham who said she “Cannot say how much they appreciated the things Senrug is doing for us.” It was worth noting that our work is appreciated by the general public even if they are not members.
   
2. Arising from the feasibility study on the ABT line, John said that it was notable that it said that all trains could stop at Manors regardless of whether the base or enhanced timetable was used with no loss of service to the public or revenue. It had also said that information points should be placed on new platforms at Bedlington and Choppington “since this is perceived as standard on stations in the region.” In response to the hollow laughter in reference to Morpeth, Dennis said that if the ABT line went ahead it would stand out like a sore thumb that the new line was provided with better information facilities than Morpeth itself, and that hopefully this would shame the NCC at last to do something about it. This was why he had argued for funds for information screens for Morpeth not to be put into the costings for the ABT line.
   

After thanking Colin Patmore for his excellent work as Treasurer, Dennis introduced our new Treasurer, Richard Hilton, who presented accounts showing a balance at present of £210. A big expense (£157) this year had been the new display boards, but they had been in constant use since purchase and they were a vital part of our outreach work. They were to go on tour with the exhibition over the next few months in Choppington and Bedlington. We were grateful to Wansbeck Council for printing off 1,000 of our ABT line leaflets; without such offers we could not survive, since publicity was the main expense for us.

Nic Best pointed out that we had only had one try so far at Castle Morpeth`s awards scheme, and that money for publicity for a project was a valid thing to apply for.

Elections – Dennis was re-elected as Chair.

Richard was re-elected as Treasurer.
John was re-elected as Secretary, though if anyone else wants a turn, he will not stand in their way!
Adrian King and John Brierley agreed to join the committee.

AOB: John Wylde (Berwick Member) has published a book on Integrated Transport – enquiries via us to John.

There is a shortened version of the ABT report to download for anyone who wants it – Dennis has the full report which is very long, but he will be glad to talk to members about this if they wish.

Some disquiet was expressed about Arriva`s recent award of the CrossCountry franchise, going on past experience in the region; Dennis said that in fairness they made a very good pitch to the meetings – by comparison Virgin were lacklustre and offered very little; they could not even be very positive about the advances already made at Morpeth. John Brierley said that he had heard that Arriva may have made a good point about overcrowding, and some offers to avoid that problem. Dennis made the point that he had a promise of discussions with Arriva to improve bus/rail integration if the franchise was awarded, and that if they had won it was perhaps because they had offered more trains. They had, for instance, implied that they were going to keep the 4 stops at Morpeth already established despite the fact that they were not written into the franchise.

Carole wondered whether local officials had any plans to market Morpeth attractions through the station signage in the same way as Alnwick – e.g. “Alnmouth for Alnwick Garden”. Agreed it would be a good idea, but so far it seemed unlikely.

Trevor mentioned that there would be disruption from Network Rail engineering on seven weekends from September onwards.

Ronald mentioned that when buses were substituted they sometimes arrived early at Cramlington and did not wait to pick up.

A visitor from Chester-le-Street asked whether following on from John Nicholson`s address, if the PTE was widened to include Morpeth would it benefit us? Dennis: Probably – Nexus are more proactive on rail. The same speaker asked if Community Rail status would benefit us, and Dennis pointed out that we had discussed this in committee after Gordon Harrison`s visit in March, and on the whole thought not as Community Rail status did not apply to Mainline or freight lines, which is what we are dealing with. It would be an uphill struggle to get the funding, and the outcome being doubtful it was thought more productive to put our energies into other things.

Meeting finished at 9.30pm. Next Meeting (Committee): Thursday 6th Sept 7.30pm at Ken`s house, 75 Low Stobhill.