Bikes, Buses and Heavy Lorry Bans …. and trains !

On a wet and blustery November evening last week more than thirty people turned out to hear more about CPRE’s proposals to help improve the current difficult and polluting traffic situation along the A628 trunk road and within Glossop and how buses and trains could be improved.
The event was organised on 2^nd November by High Peak Green New Deal and CPRE Peak District and South Yorkshire.

Low Carbon Travel for Longdendale and Glossopdale would remove the heavy lorries onto the motorway box around the area using a weight restriction of 7.5t – local deliveries would not be affected. The road space this would create would be used to provide safer more comfortable walking and cycling with 20mph speed limits and more crossings; more reliable journeys for buses through short stretches of road where buses would have priority; electric buses and new services; and smoother traffic flows.

‘The proposals are only a starting point and give an idea of what could be achieved with a small investment of less than £10million’, said CPRE transport campaigner Anne Robinson ‘This should be compared with the A57 Link Roads which would give us a couple of miles of tarmac and worse traffic conditions -worse congestion and worse pollution – throughout Tintwistle, Hollingworth and Glossopdale. Better alternatives exist as other speakers showed on the night.’

Derbyshire County Councillor Ruth George gave a trenchant account of the current situation for bus services and how they could be improved with the £47 million allocated to Derbyshire. Ruth also told us about her campaigns for more cycleways in the High Peak.

Jim Bamford outlined proposals to significantly upgrade both the Glossop/Hadfield to Manchester and the Manchester to Sheffield services

Jim said: ‘These rail services carry several million passengers per annum, and usage has grown strongly for many years so that they have become full and very crowded. Plans exist to make both services more frequent, faster and more reliable, and so attract yet more passengers to rail. However, the Government is now deferring and scrapping those rail improvement plans and instead is pushing more people back onto the A57 & A628’.

Also attending was Helen Thornhill of Move More Glossop who said: ‘I was delighted to be part of this event, the promotion of safe shared spaces for cyclists & pedestrians and improvements of public transport is at the heart of the Move More Glossop’s priorities. Together we will form a joined up, shared vision to create a sustainable travel plan for Glossop residents and beyond, ensuring we reduce pollution, congestion and encourage active travel.’

‘We were delighted with the event’ said Linda Walker of High Peak Green New Deal who chaired the event. ‘The audience was enthusiastic about the proposals and wanted to use them to build support for a fuller proposal that could be submitted to the County Council.’

The next steps would be to engage the communities in Longdendale and Glossopdale to identify what local travel networks should be like if they are to be safe easy and attractive for everyone to use.

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