Yesterday was Melksham's "Party in the Park" and carnival, where it seems the whole town turns out to see the stalls in the afternoon, the parade in the early evening, and the concert and fireworks after that - or at least to attend some of the events.

Last year, the Melksham Railway Development Group and the Save the Train campaign took a stall to inform a new audience who are perhaps not on line and don't keep up with local news about the service and campaign we're running - and we we delightfully amaze to find just how very supportive everyone was. And indeed the campaign progressed well over the year ... until just a few days ago, when First Great Western emailed to let us know - that after all the hard work - that they hadn't been able to sort out a financial package (yet?) and so there will be no improvement to train services calling at Melksham until December 2009 at the earliest.

I'm disappointed at the news, but not entirely surprised. The Department for Transport point at First Great Western, who point at Wiltshire County Council, who point at the Department for Transport. The DfT say they've no money, but finance load of other schemes (mostly in marginal constituencies). FGW say they're a commercial organisation as indeed they are, and yet they've found some 200k to hire an extra train for a few extra summer Saturdays for a Weymouth service which would make the difference for the "TransWilts" for a whole year. Wiltshire County Council plead poverty, then spend 2 million (that's enough for 10 years) in a fruitless search for a new water source on the slopes above Westbury, and continue to pour money into buses that are demonstrably carrying few passengers. Curious thing is ... everyone agrees that the case is a sound one and would be of huge benefit not only to Melksham but to the area as a whole, but no-one of the three takes a bold steps and puts the passenger (and wannabe passenger) first. The DfT's steer is marginal constituencies, FGW's steer is shareholder return, and WCC's steer is the a principled stand and the voters of one particular Westbury ward.


What case, then, to present at "Party in the Park" - to say "Lost again - end of campaign", to say "Whatever they say - NOT yet lost for December", to say "let's start pushing the harder for next year", or to say "let's regroup". What we presented, though, was the current situation. We filled in friends and contacts, and we listened. We listened to Joe Public's thoughts on rail services - not only on what they would like to see, but what they would use, and where we should go. Not so formally as last year, where we ran a survey - but listening still to what people want. Conclusion? People want a decent train service!

My "Party in the Park" handouts are on the Web site - here (current timetable) and here (a brief status report).

As an important footnote to the reader of this article - The TransWilts train service links (twice a day - 06:15 and 18:45 from Swindon) the five largest population centres of Wiltshire, of which Melksham is just one. There are no through trains at all in the reverse direction. An appropriate train service is (according to the county council) hourly ...

(written 2008-07-13 10:16:00)

 

Back to Configuring Apache httpd

Previous and next or Horse's mouth home

Forward to There is more that one way - Perl

Switched to new server
Rapid growth leads to server move
At the Westbury Bypass Enquiry
There is more that one way - Perl
A Train Service Update for Melksham Party in the Park
Configuring Apache httpd
The Story of Well House Manor
Environment variables in Perl / use Env
Finding operating system settings in Perl
Perl ... adding to a list - end, middle, start
Link to page ... 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35 at 50 posts per page


This is a page archived from The Horse's Mouth at http://www.wellho.net/horse/ - the diary and writings of Graham Ellis. Every attempt was made to provide current information at the time the page was written, but things do move forward in our business - new software releases, price changes, new techniques. Please check back via our main site for current courses, prices, versions, etc - any mention of a price in "The Horse's Mouth" cannot be taken as an offer to supply at that price.

Link to Ezine home page (for reading).
Link to Blogging home page (to add comments).