and is wrong in both those statements.Just saying everyone drives and will continue to drive is missing the point
and is wrong in both those statements.Just saying everyone drives and will continue to drive is missing the point
I did an IKEA shop for my daughter a few years ago, by train and with a change at Manchester Vic. A mirror and several smaller items, no table though. I think my time from Ashton-under-Lyne station to IKEA and back was under 45 minutes! Olympic shopping.Been there - done that. And a table.
How many of these are bigger than Northampton? Swansea and Hull, Walsall and Sunderland (depending on definitions). Other than Walsall these are on the coast and two are termini, whereas Northampton is bang in the middle of the country.What about Aberdeen, Durham, Bangor, Chelmsford, Swansea, Hull, Walsall, Sandwell & Dudley, Luton, Blackpool, Sunderland, Poole and Telford?
Even Wellingborough not falling into Northampton's TTWA shows up an economic linkage deficiency for a county seat just a few miles away.These are the latest Travel to Work Areas from the 2011 Census. These are defined as: "of the resident economically active population, at least 75% actually work in the area, and also, that of everyone working in the area, at least 75% actually live in the area."
The Northampton one includes Daventry and Towcester, but not Banbury: https://mapit.mysociety.org/area/163666.html
Banbury has its own area which includes Brackley: https://mapit.mysociety.org/area/163580.html
This means that Banbury has fairly small levels of out-commuting to Oxford or Northampton.
But stuff like that happens all over, even when there's very good transport connections. Northolt, Northwood, Hounslow, Hillingdon, Surbiton, Southall, etc aren't in London's TTWA.Even Wellingborough not falling into Northampton's TTWA shows up an economic linkage deficiency for a county seat just a few miles away.
Even Wellingborough not falling into Northampton's TTWA shows up an economic linkage deficiency for a county seat just a few miles away.
I cannot think that any business locates itself somewhere because someone described it thus; nor that anyone takes a job there or lives there or visits on that basis.But this whole "county" town, "county seat" is a nonsense.
'up to a point Lord Copper'. Someone has to pay Atkins, Jacobs, Kier, Skanska, Volker Fitzpatrick, WSP, and all those involved with baselining and workstreams etc- including you and me and us all.I'm all for serious investigation of any possible public transport improvements,
For jobs, shopping and leisure, people in Wellingborough are as likely to look at Milton Keynes as they are Northampton, despite the additional distance. Mainly because MK has more large employers than Northampton and a vastly better shopping and leisure offering.
I lived close to Wellingborough for a number of years, and hardly ever went to Northampton, and only then because they had a big B&Q (this was before Wellingborough got its own branch). Shopping etc was always to Milton Keynes - far more choice, less congestion and much easier to park.
Believe what you like, but public transport isn't going to be able to serve every village or hamlet. It never did in the past, which is why people retained their horse and cart despite the advent of both the train and the motor bus.
I don't think it would cost an earth shattering amount of money to do just that.......
As well as the obvious cross country routes (note the absence of capitalisation, other franchises might run such services) from east midlands to the south and southwest, would it be worth having a spur onto HS2 where the two routes intersect? The benefit of doing so are that services from the east midlands could access Heathrow aerodrome via Old Oak Common, although I accept that the section of HS2 where those services would join are forecast to run at maximum capacity.
Well, it depends what that provision looks like. Take Herts as an example - currently bus subsidies (so non-commercial routes) runs at about £ 3.3m a year and I can name a dozen small villages / hamlets which are currently unserved even by a once a week shoppers bus.
If you wanted to uplift the service levels to hourly or better, 12 hours a day, 6 days a week - I suspect you wouldn't see change from £ 30m - and that's just one county. And running empty or half empty buses around isn't good for the environment either.
HS2 is already stretching the limits of what can be done capacity wise on high speed track, with 'only' 1tph (~5%) recovery/growth capacity. Apart from running 4 tracks all the way to Old Oak Common (£££ and political suicide given how contested even 2 tracks are in the Chilterns), the only way you could fit in trains to more places would be to split and join trains more.As well as the obvious cross country routes (note the absence of capitalisation, other franchises might run such services) from east midlands to the south and southwest, would it be worth having a spur onto HS2 where the two routes intersect? The benefit of doing so are that services from the east midlands could access Heathrow aerodrome via Old Oak Common, although I accept that the section of HS2 where those services would join are forecast to run at maximum capacity.
4BPH might be a bit over the top, but in Switzerland and parts of Germany pretty much every settlement has a public transport service to a node with connections into the hierarchy of longer-distance services via the takt. Consequently public transport is viable for a good range of journeys, though not all, and although car ownership is generally higher car use is less. It's about having the options available to make choices. Whereas here we persist with a disintegrated network that may ostensibly save money but isn't actually of much use to most people.Well even on the county scale, £30m is peanuts.
How many hamlets are there in England and Wales?
What would it cost to put four Optare Solos an hour through all of them?
Have a gold star! I've never been to Banbury in my life And yes, I would have driven it. Trains are fine if you're not carrying loads of stuff - living in Ely now I prefer the train for trips to Bury St Edmunds or Norwich, but only if it's just a day out and we fancy a pub lunch (well, pre-lockdown anyway)And I'm willing to bet a couple of other things - you went to Banbury even less often than Northampton. And even if there had been a rail link between Northampton and Wellingborough, you'd still have driven it.
How did I do?
But many services are already planned as 400m long so cannot possibly be extended, and those that are planned as 200m would have to slow down, stop at a Calvert Interchange style station (thus lose time and waste scarce paths), uncouple, then each go their separate ways. It's just not going to happen, it's far too expensive and far too much of a performance risk - even if both portions were to be entirely HS2 captive - on a railway that's as tight a ship as HS2 will be running eventually.
You are both right about HS2 capacity. The WRAtH suggestion accessed through Oxford and the GWML sounds more plausible for creating paths from the east midlands to Heathrow. One certainly hopes that the necessary lines would be electrified by the distance future that we might expect to see NAR built.The problem with that plan is that there will be very little capacity available to Heathrow Airport from the east when Crossrail is up and running. There is an alternative, the Western Rail Approach to Heathrow (WRAtH) which is towards the end of the development stage. That will diverge from the GWML between Langley and Iver giving services from Cardiff, Bristol and Reading direct access to the airport.
If suitable rolling stock is chosen or further electrification is undertaken (the Heathrow branch is only available to trains operating on electric power) then services from Oxford and potentially much further afield would be able to access Heathrow, subject to pathing constraints.
A Heathrow service taking that route to Peterborough (of beyond) would intercept all three legacy mainlines, providing them with easier transfer than via London termini, even if most of the market on the WCML will already be using HS2.
Have a gold star! I've never been to Banbury in my life And yes, I would have driven it. Trains are fine if you're not carrying loads of stuff - living in Ely now I prefer the train for trips to Bury St Edmunds or Norwich, but only if it's just a day out and we fancy a pub lunch (well, pre-lockdown anyway)
Banbury - Wellingborough is a little different to Banbury - Northampton. Banbury and Wellingborough a very similar sized towns, and Northampton is in the middle. I live in Banbury and I've never been to Wellingborough in my life (been past it many times on the A45) on the way East. I have been to Northampton though many times.
My original point still stands, that Northampton being a large town, will attract travel from smaller towns for shopping, leisure, employment etc. I totally accept that there may be bigger, better shopping centres, theatres, restaurants elsewhere, but some people will still travel to Northampton for many reasons.
I 'attended' the EEH webinar yesterday- a number of points relate:Rail is an efficient way to move people *when it is moving a lot of people who want to travel to certain destinations *
Well OK - but follow that to its logical conclusion. I regularly travel from where I live in Northampton to the middle of rural Hertfordshire to visit my parents. There isn't a rail link (nor in the case of their village was there ever one) - does that justify spending up to or may be more than £ 1bn ?
Rail is an efficient way to move people *when it is moving alot of people who want to travel to certain destinations * - so the trains from Northampton to London and Northampton to Birmingham are busy.
That Banbury can't even sustain a regular direct bus service to Towcester, Northampton or Daventry tells you the demand for those journeys is relatively low. And on that basis it is far better to spend the sums - which for heavy rail always were and always will be significant - on areas where there is genuine demand.
As a comparison, Oxford to Cambridge (basically the route of EWR) *does* sustain a regular coach service which is well used, so it is reasonable to contend a rail link there might be viable.
Nor even a Banbury to Peterborough shuttle! Swindon is talked about as the the preferred westernmost node of any future mesh of rail services within the EEH.Mind you, I don't suppose we are talking here of a Banbury to Northampton shuttle. I'm guessing trains would start further down the track - Oxford, Reading?
Nor even a Banbury to Peterborough shuttle! Swindon is talked about as the the preferred westernmost node of any future mesh of rail services within the EEH.
How about a Lowestoft to Penzance service? If you are going make a route from east to west, why not do it in style!
That Banbury can't even sustain a regular direct bus service to Towcester, Northampton or Daventry tells you the demand for those journeys is relatively low. And on that basis it is far better to spend the sums - which for heavy rail always were and always will be significant - on areas where there is genuine demand.
Daventry is part of the proposal (well proposed study area) - it even gets a specific mention in the detail on p83 of the report in the potential benefits ("Ability to provide services to high growth sites that are currently not on the rail network such as Daventry"), unlike Banbury which only appears in the summary description of the arcs on p82 ("This is flanked by a northern arc that provides connectivity in a corridor that links North Oxfordshire Banbury with Northampton, North Northamptonshire and Peterborough") - though not the one on p8 ("Northern Arc: A corridor linking North Oxfordshire with Northamptonshire and on to Peterborough").that doesn't seem to be part of any proposal
There is no 'route'. It's an oval on a map promising a study!the route is further south through villages with some of the highest car ownership rates in the country.
You've said this a few times, but there is an hourly bus service Banbury - Daventry, and these tend to get quite busy throughout the day. Many passengers make end to end journeys so there's clearly some demand. That's despite the journey taking a long time for the distance thanks to a dogleg through Woodford Halse.
However, I'm not sure there's much onward demand to Northampton - I get the feeling the service is mainly used by Daventry residents travelling to Banbury for shopping, or interchanging onto trains to Oxford, Bicester, or the Thames Valley. While in an ideal world Daventry would connect to the national network more effectively, that doesn't seem to be part of any proposal - the route is further south through villages with some of the highest car ownership rates in the country.
Mind you, I don't suppose we are talking here of a Banbury to Northampton shuttle. I'm guessing trains would start further down the track - Oxford, Reading?
EWR already has a planned Oxford to MK service though, and has done for ages. Or am I misunderstanding?.EWR would be better with a planned MK to Oxford service but I believe extending to Northampton is a capacity problem.