RAIL COMPANIES NOT CONSULTED ON FATE OF WOODHEAD TUNNELS

Glossopdale Transition Initiative has learnt that rail companies have not been consulted on the fate of the Woodhead Tunnels.

The government recently wrote to local MPs about the fate of the old Victorian Woodhead Railway Tunnels now that the National Grid has finished transferring its high voltage cables to the newer 1953 tunnel. The letter from Simon Burns, Minister for Transport, indicated that the government did not consider it worthwhile spending the £25,000 a year it would cost to maintain the old tunnels in case they needed to be used again for cabling to allow trains through the 1953 tunnel.

Martin Porter, Transport Campaigner for GTi, contacted Arriva trains, who in 2000 submitted an unsuccessful £1.8 billion bid for the Trans-Pennine rail franchise which included plans to reopen the Woodhead Tunnel, to warn them the tunnel may soon not be available for use.

Ed Thomas, Head of Communications for their bid team replied “I’m afraid that we were not aware

of the plans for the tunnels prior to your email, although we did pick up press reports about the issue after you had got in touch.”

“I am, however, very grateful to you for bringing this matter to my attention. Representatives from Arriva have regular meetings with DfT Ministers and officials as part of the Government’s engagement with the Rail Industry, and our views are sought on future franchise specifications. I have disseminated your email throughout the Bid Team.”

Mr Thomas was not able to comment on any future plans Arriva may have as the government has not yet announced what form a future franchise to run trains across the Pennines would take.

Martin Porter said “It’s a real pity local campaign groups have not been invited to recent Route Based Strategy workshops to discuss the transport problems in the Longdendale valley, as we seem to be the only ones trying to consult all the relevant stakeholders.”

The Last Road Protest in Britain?

Overhead fly planes from the two runways at Manchester Airport, producing seven and half thousand tons of carbon dioxide a day.

At one end the three lane motorway that is the M67 ends in the two street village in which L S Lowry was born, the resulting traffic jams made worse by the construction of a loss making Tesco superstore.

At the other end is Britain's oldest National Park, across which lorries crawl 365 days a year.

In between lie the three Woodhead tunnels. Two about to be allowed to become derelict whilst the third, one of the newest railway tunnels in Britain, has not seen a passenger train pass through in more than half its life.

Welcome to the Integrated Transport disaster that is Longdendale.

Situated between Manchester and Sheffield, Longendale has a reputation as the 'Haunted Valley' with UFO hunters often camping out in search of the Longendale Lights. Cynics would say these are just aircraft coming in to land at Manchester Airport, but I do know someone who had an encounter with a 'ghost car' near the Devil's Elbow.

However there is nothing mysterious about the traffic congestion in the valley. Every day lorries rumble through the villages of Mottram, Tintwistle and Hollingworth a few feet from people's houses and a few inches from pedestrians.

A bypass was proposed, first in the seventies and then again in the noughties when it was killed off by campaigners and the Peak Park Authority, although this didn't stop the promised Tescos being built alongside the non-existant bypass.

But, like all the best villains, the road has risen from the grave. Not a bypass this time, but a possible Peak Park Motorway. 

Meetings are taking place across the Northwest of England to discuss a possible new road through Longdendale and that the public are not invited to participate. Department of Transport consultations on the a Route Based Strategy will be held in Warrington on 29/09/2013, Preston on 26/09/2013, Liverpool on 1/10/2013 and Manchester on 4/10/2013. ‘Local stakeholders’, as groups like GTi  are known, are not invited.

Meanwhile, as mentioned below, the Department for Transport appears minded to let the old Woodhead railway tunnels fall into disrepair, possibly preventing the newest tunnel ever being used again for trains. It seems not even Arriva, who had previously bid to reopen the line as part of the Trans-Pennine rail franchise, were consulted.

What is striking about the DfT's letter asking for opinions on the future of the tunnels is that there is
no mention of the traffic congestion in Longdendale. As far as the DfT is concerned, cars are from Venus and trains are from Mars. They are apples and cabbages, and can never be considered together in a strategy. Only more roads can end road congestion and only more railways can end train congestion. That the two are in any way related seems to be beyond their ken.

No doubt the Route Based Strategies will suggest a Peak Park Motorway. No doubt the new planning laws will see the Public Inquiry take place somewhere a long way from Longdendale. No doubt it will be a whitewash.

But equally, no doubt the campaigners will be back, lying in front of the bulldozers if necessary. 

We probably reached Peak Conventional Oil in 2007 and possibly Peak Car in the same year. Climate Change, as the IPCC reminded us today, is the big problem for twentifirst century.We do not need a Peak Motorway.

At some point sanity will kick in and we wills top building new roads. There will, one day, be the last road protest in Britain, and maybe this will be it.

So who's in then. The Last Road Protest In Britain?

Watch this space.

Urgent Action Needed To Save Woodhead Tunnels

The Woodhead Tunnels are in danger and immediate action is required to save them.

The three tunnels, which have not seen a train run through them for thirty two years, have up until now been maintained by the National Grid who used them for high voltage cables.

With now complete on installing cables in the new 1953 tunnel the National Grid has no more use for the older tunnels. The Department of Transport will therefore decide this month on whether to purchase the tunnels in order to maintain them for future use. If the 1953 tunnel were to be reopened for trains the Victorian tunnels could again be used for electricity - unless they have fallen down.

Simon Burns MP, the Minister of State for Transport, has written to Andrew Bingham MP asking for his views by the beginning of September.

Successful campaigning by the Save The Woodhead Tunnel group extracted from the
previous government a statement that they would consider the 'option' of preserving the tunnels, but the letter from the department appears to show how hollow those words were.

All this occurs at a time when the Highways Agency is consulting on Trans-Pennine Transport solutions. With the Woodhead Tunnels gone before the consultation has even started, the proposed Trans-Pennine Motorway could have the field to itself.

Keeping the tunnel open will cost £25,000 a year. By contrast the cost of the aborted inquiry into the Longendale Bypass alone was £16 million, or £39,000 a day.

Estimates of future traffic along any Trans-Pennine Motorway are unreliable - that's why the Public Inquiry ended - as are the potential saving of a rail alternative. However English Nature estimated that the road would add 15,840 tons of CO2 a year to the atmosphere, whilst the Translink proposal for reopening the tunnel estimated it could save 100,000 tons a year.

What To Do

If you want to see the tunnels saved for possible reuse, then you need to email or write to Andrew Bingham as soon as possible. Personal letters only please, he hates mass circulation emails and cards.

Andrew Bingham
Office of Andrew Bingham MP
20 Broad Walk
Buxton
SK17 6JR

andrew.bingham.mp@parliament.uk

My own email to Andrew Bingham (please don't copy - use your own words)

Dear Andrew

I am writing as I believe the Department of Transport is currently considering whether to purchase the Victorian Woodhead Tunnels from the National Grid in order to preserve them for future use.

I note that they are making this decision at the same time that the Department is consulting with stakeholders over proposed Trans-Pennine transport solutions, in which road building in the Longendale Valley will be on the table.

I strongly believe that with car use in this country on a plateau or declining and with oil prices showing no sign of reducing, increasing Trans-Pennine rail capacity is the solution to the traffic problems of the valley and that, along with electrifying the Hope Valley line and improvements in the Leeds-Manchester line, reopening the Woodhead line would be a way of doing this.

I am therefore very strongly of the opinion that to allow the Victorian tunnels to fall into disrepair now, when we have no solutions at all agreed upon would be the wrong decision and that the Department of Transport must take the necessary steps to preserve them. There will be a cost, but it will be utterly trivial compared to the cost of even an inquiry into a road scheme.

Like so much of what is best about Glossop, these tunnels are the legacy of the forward thinking and sound engineering of our Victorian ancestors. They should not be discarded lightly.

Yours sincerely

Martin Porter

Transport in Transition Quiz

Yes, the Transport Group is finally doing something!

The next Green Drinks, on Thursday 6th June at 8Pm at The Oakwood, High Streetwest, Glossop will be our in inaugural event, a quiz.

Please come along to a light hearted evening that will gently introduce some of the themes of why we need to change from carbon-fuel dependent means of transportation that destroy communities to something cleaner, greener and ultimately more effective.

There will be prizes, but not necessarily good ones.  We may have an old Jeremy Clarkson book to give away to whoever comes first, in which case the person who

comes second will get two Jeremy Clarkson books...

So come along and help launch and direct the Transport Group. We are interested in 20mph speed limits, alternatives to the Longendale Bypass, idea on getting more people to walk, cycle and use buses and trains more and aeroplanes less.

Your support and inspiration is all we need.

Transition Transport

The Transport in Transition sub-group aims to campaign to get the people of Glossop less dependent on carbon fuelled transportation and getting about in a greener and more sustainable way.

In due course we will be looking at car sharing, helping people to make better use of bus and trains and considering reducing the use of aeroplanes.

20 Is Plenty

However the greenest method of travel is your own feet, whether in direct contact with the ground or pedalling a bike.

Three things make walking and cycling a pain in Glossopdale. The first is the hills, the second the weather and the third is the traffic. There's not much we can do about the first two except learn a bit of resilience, but we can do something about the traffic.

To start things off we want motorists to slow down, at least in residential areas.

The Gory Facts

• Britain has the highest percentage of pedestrians killed in road accidents in Europe
• 2011 saw a 3% increase in road deaths and a 12% increase in pedestrian casulaties

Now The Good News

• 34 local authorities, with a population of 8.4 million people, have adopted default 20mph speed limits on urban streets.
• Portsmouth saw accidents fall 22% when they introduced the scheme

It's Not About Speed Bumps  

One thing we can probably all agree on is that 'traffic calming' is not great. It delays ambulances, increases traffic fumes and fuel use as cars accelerate between bumps and it really annoys drivers.

For the same money you can make 50 miles of street a 20mph zone, with a much greater overall reduction in speed. Once motorists get used to a 20mph default speed limit they don't need the bumps.

The Transition Perspective

Fewer people killed or injured on the road is a good thing in itself, but Transition Towns would want this to be a first step towards people reclaiming the streets.

We would want to see not only more walking and cycling, but street parties, play streets and more imaginative use of urban space.

If you want to get involved, contact Martin at glossopdaletransitioninitiative@inbox.com