JANUARY 2019 The Government has given Central Bedfordshire Council £1,976,000 extra cash to fix potholes CHAIRMAN’S LETTER Although CBC had promised to start repairing the High St in Autumn so far there is no action taking place and I intend to go back to the CBC for an explanation. It seems there are plans afoot to develop the site behind The Golden Bell and plans have been drawn up for presentation to CBC for planning permission. John Hartley, our previous Secretary and then Chairman passed away in the New Year after a battle with cancer, I vis- ited him regularly in his last months. He will be a great lose to The Society. I shall not be around for 1 month from 3rd January 2019 and John Sharp will Chair the meeting 24th January 2019. So I hope as many members as possible will attend to listen to Dr Brierley on Climate Change. Best wishes for a good New Year. Maurice Crowe Chairman The photo shows members watching Maurice present our petition to the Full Central Beds Council at their July meeting, at the start of our October Meeting. Andrew Selous at our November meeting stated that he is still on the case and apparently the gas board plans to dig up parts of The High Street is the hold up. 2 MEMBERSHIP RENEWAL We hope you have enjoyed the variety of presentations. Membership renewals are now due for those members who do not have a standing order, please let Mike know if you would like to pay by Standing Order. Have you considered paying annually by standing or- der? It means you never miss out on your membership and can cancel your standing order at anytime. Our subscriptions are: Individual £10 Concessions £8 and Family £ 16 Cheques payable to Leighton Buzzard Society and to be sent to The Membership Secretary, Mike Shepherd, 3 Cetus Cres- cent, LU7 3NL or at our January meeting (cash or cheque). We hope you will continue to support the work of the Society and look forward to meeting you at our social events. Have you seen this sign any- where in town? 3 Footbridge over the West Coast Line, Linslade The current position of the closed footbridge immediately south of Leighton Buzzard station that carries a public right of way ( Leighton Buzzard No 68) is that Network Rail have stated that the footbridge is in a dangerous condition. Exact- ly what is meant by that is not clear, possibly there is corro- sion on the underside of the steel decking or maybe there is corrosion at some points on the supporting columns which appear to me to made of cast iron. Although a step is miss- ing from the top of the staircase shown on the left. Anyway, whatever corrosion there is, Network Rail are concerned that parts of the structure may become detached & fall on to the railway tracks & overhead electric power lines, so they, Net- work Rail, took action via CBC to close the bridge to the public. http://www.centralbedfordshire.gov.uk/Images/notice-lb- footpath-68_tcm3-30152.pdf http://www.centralbedfordshire.gov.uk/Images/map-lb- footpath-68_tcm3-30153.pdf The deterioration was first noted by Network Rail in July 2018. They contacted CBC & as a result, CBC as the highway authority closed the footpath route over the bridge. CBC in the light of this closure, advertised an alternative route pro- 4 vided by Network Rail which uses the existing footbridge within the station. Notices giving full details were posted by CBC adjacent to the closed off stairways on each side of the suspect footbridge. Network Rail said that the closure would last six months during which time they would investigate the condition of the bridge further. Six months will be up by 31 January 2019. Otherwise If the works are not completed within six months the Order may be extended for a longer period with the consent of the Secretary of State for Transport. A member of the Society alerted our Chairman, Maurice about the closure. Suspecting possible inaction from Network Rail in the matter as there is an acceptable albeit convoluted alternative route, I raised the matter with Andrew Selous MP in October regarding the inconvenience of closure of a long standing pedestrian route within Linslade. I took photographs of the legal notices to assist him. Properly he approached CBC who in turn have raised the matter with Network Rail. At least we got via Andrew a reply from CBC, 31 October 2018, Dear Mr Selous I have been asked to send you a holding response regarding the above, on behalf of Mark MacDonald, Custodian for Area 2. Mark has advised that Network Rail have closed this as it is unsafe. We have requested further information from Network Rail and will update you further when we have their com- ments. In the meantime, if I can be of any assistance, please do not hesitate to contact me. Julie Welsted, PA to Marcel Coiffait, Director of Community Services So considering in the words of Network Rail ‘Leighton Buzzard - one of the busiest stations on the West Coast Main Line’ (Source— https://www.networkrail.co.uk/wp-content/ 5 uploads/2016/11/Leighton-Buzzard-benefits-of-HS2.pdf) they appear to have forgotten about our historic footbridge, seen here on this 1925 Map Numerous photos of the footbridge over the years can be found on this website http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/l/ leighton_buzzard/ John Sharp, Transport Officer Buses The other day when in MK, at the Arriva enquiry “cube” build- ing, I picked up a copy of the latest, November 2018, issue of the timetable book containing all the bus services emanating from MK & which is published by MK Council. This includes the longer distance services between Cambridge & Oxford, & to Northampton, Leicester & Peterborough. All these longer dis- tance services are legally stage carriage bus services on which ENCTS bus passes are valid. I’ve mentioned this pub- lication before: it really is an excellent example of a local au- thority striving to do things properly. Each time this docu- ment is published there is a warning to say that in future it might be issued in an alternative format. However so far it continues to appear as a hard print book. I commend it our members. I know several people use the X7 service to North- ampton & Leicester. It is a very scenic route. Although From 6 7 January, service X7 will have a revised route and timeta- ble which can be found https://www.milton-keynes.gov.uk/highways-and-transport -hub/bus-and-taxi/bus-timetables-maps-and-travel- updates John Sharp, Transport Officer Oxford to Cambridge Expressway I recently returned from Paris on the Eurostar, the woman sat next to me lives in Cambridge, we had an interesting conver- sation on the issues with the East-West Railway around Cam- bridge, their guided busway and its success plus the Ox-Cam Expressway. She use to live near to Bedford and catch the train to school, she was now retired so was talking about the Varsity Line, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varsity_Line Without being a member of The Society I would not have had the depth and range of knowledge to discuss these issues. At present the England's Economic Heartland's Strategic Transport Forum is to write to the Secretary of State for Transport setting out is concerns over the 'western section' of the Oxford to Cambridge expressway. Concerns centre around the disappointing level of engage- ment by Highways England with EEH and a lack of transpar- ency around how the section from the west of Oxford to Mil- ton Keynes is taking into account other planned major infra- structure such as East West Rail. "So when it comes to investing in our road network we need to ensure that it complements – rather than competes with – our investment in rail and digital connectivity." For further reading and to sign up for emails visit http://www.englandseconomicheartland.com Or follow them on Twitter https://twitter.com/EconomicHeart https://twitter.com/ewrconsortium Sue James 7 Plastic Free LB During the Autumn there has been 3 talks on Climate Change, resulting in a small group being formed to rid the town of un- necessary plastics. A member of Chester Friends of Earth gave a very interesting talk on how Chester became plastic free starting with straws. If you are interested in joining this group which ranges from age 17 upwards, the next meeting is on the 22nd January, 7.30pm at The Friends Meeting House in North Street, enter via the left hand door. The next talk on Climate Change is on Thursday 10th January at 7.30pm, also at The Friends Meeting House. The speaker is Paul Brown lives in Linslade and used to be the environ- ment correspondent for The Guardian newspaper. The photo above was taken at Leighton Buzzard Rugby Club, well done to them for having paper straws. Can we convince other bars, cafes etc. to do them same? Taxis are still an issue in the town, there were 9 taxis parked random- ly around the High Street on a Friday at 11am. 8 October Meeting Due to The Police Commissioner having to can- cel at the last minute, (after Maurice chased her secretary to confirm her attendance) but he has booked her for March 2019 as our speaker. We welcomed back Evan Williamson from the auction world who started with comedy and a lady’s spending with her husband's credit card at an auction, she won every lot.