More details on p4 here, where you can put your questions to one of the people who puts together train timetables, Phil Hutchinson of GTR – Thameslink to you & me
Unfortunately the meeting does clash with the Mill Road Winter Fair as it does annually, but as it starts at 2.30pm (I’ve scheduled it on FB here for those who use it as a reminder) there’s enough time to see the morning and lunchtime things.
Campaigning for better railways and rail services
You can see the current list of campaigns Rail Future is running here. Also, I’ve written about various Rail-Future-related things over the years here, even though I don’t travel by train these days. With the joys of CFS/ME I can’t travel far outside of Cambridge without someone taking me there. The last time I crossed a county boundary was before the 2019 general election.
Left – on Blue Sky – where over the past few weeks many people in the Westminister media bubble have moved to, finding that the changes made by the current proprietor of what was Twitter has made the site almost unusable for them.
…but old campaigning habits die hard!
“If you are a rail user, or just want to see lorries removed from our congested roads, then it could be the best £20 (£14 for under 26s) you’ve ever spent.”
Above – should you want to join Rail Future
Rail Future also commissioned an in-depth study on re-opening the Haverhill line to Cambridge
I wrote about it here. It was completely dismissed by the Greater Cambridge Partnership – the less of which said the better. The scale of growth that the Housing Minister has proposed for Cambridge and southern Cambridgeshire means light rail has to be incorporated into what will likely involve the doubling of the size of the city compared to where it was in the early 1990s.
Above – proposals from Rail Future East Anglia/Wisbech Rail showing the restored rail services in green as tram-train lines. -Note the Greater Cambridge Partnership has also abandoned its proposals for a segregated route into Cambridge served by a Cambridge East Station.
Devolution White Paper
It’s highly likely that the much-anticipated Devolution White Paper – the Government’s major new policy statement on devolution and local government in England – will have been published when the meeting takes place. It will also have or be accompanied by further content on the future of Cambridge – including possible new powers for the Combined Authority. Therefore there will be *lots* to talk about at this event.
If you’d like to know more about Rail Future in our part of the country, contact the representatives of the East Anglia branch here.
If you are interested in the longer term future of Cambridge, and on what happens at the local democracy meetings where decisions are made, feel free to:
- Follow me on BSky <- A critical mass of public policy people seem to have moved here (and we could do with more local Cambridge/Cambs people on there!)
- Like my Facebook page
- Consider a small donation to help fund my continued research and reporting on local democracy in and around Cambridge.
Below – The Trials of Democracy workshops continue this weekend at the Cambridge Central Library (Sat 23rd Nov) followed by one at the Mill Road Community Centre (Sat 30th Nov) – Both sessions are free.
The Cambridge Town Owl 