Stiff penalties will enforce eco-town viability

A comment comes in about the transport aspects of eco-towns covered in my post of last night Weston-Otmoor Flintgrad will be Commuterville. It suggests that the fine for driving out of Flintgrad at peak times could be as high as £200.

That seems consistent with the general approach likely to be taken by a government which thinks that heavy-handed authoritarianism is the way to go. My theme yesterday was that we are in fact unlikely to see the transport benefits – the incentives – which the developer is offering. They are out of the developer’s hands anyway, and any scheme which depends on a Labour government honouring its commitments, on the competence of Network Rail, and on the abilities of the transport officers of Oxfordshire County Council, is doomed to failure.

Weston-Otmoor Flintgrad will be Commuterville

The eco-towns, or Flintgrads as they are known after the not-very-bright single-issue fanatic Caroline Flint who is promoting them, are flawed in concept and far from eco. Weston Otmoor, near Oxford, has more flaws than most. We have seen New Labour’s bad faith in this region before and take no comfort either from Flint’s promise to adhere to the planning process or from our estimate of her ability to hold the developers to their promises.

A report commissioned by the Government to challenge the developers of the so-called “eco-towns” has applauded the “developed transport strategy” on which the plans are based, but foresees that Weston Otmoor, the development close to Oxford, will simply become a dormitory town. Their report says

The transport strategy is potentially transformational and uses tram-train, free travel and demand management for car-use. As residents may simply take the tram to the park-and-ride and drive to either London or Birmingham, how will the town be stopped from becoming Commuterville?

All sorts of questions arise here, not least how a group including a fashion designer and a couple of television presenters can purport to have anything useful to say on the subject, particularly as they do not appear to have spoken to anyone opposed to the Weston-Otmoor scheme.

Thinking expensively for us at Tackley Halt

There is a disappointing leader in the Oxford Times this week, with the Editor apparently subscribing to the widely-held idea that “they” must do our thinking for us. It is the job of sensible newspaper editors to try and stem the flow of such nonsense, not to ride it or encourage it.

The context is the unfortunate death of an elderly woman under a train at Tackley Halt. Villagers, says the Oxford Times, had warned Network Rail five years ago of their “real concerns”. Network Rail had applied successfully for planning permission for a tunnel but had decided after a risk assessment that warning signs were sufficient.

The leader writer concludes from this that a death on the crossing is “sad proof that the assessment was wrong”. It might be “might simply be pure luck” that there have been no other fatalities. A “fresh assessment…is needed urgently”.

Bollocks.

FGW dumps its albatross

Even as I was writing my piece about the closure of the Travel Centre at Oxford Station, First Great Western was relieving Alison Forster of the top job.

The company is performing very badly all over its region, but Oxford suffered in particular from timetable changes last winter. If the original decision was bad, Forster’s handling of the fallout was worse, culminating in an embarrassing climb-down. Commuters are generally docile, resigned to their lot as fodder for First Group’s shareholders and victims of New Labour’s neglect of public transport. It was quite a feat on Alison Forster’s part to incite the formation of a protest group, Ox Rail Action.

FGW closes Oxford Travel Centre

There is not much positive to say about Oxford railway station. Its operator is First Great Western, presently bottom of the table of worst performing railway companies, with a record for poor service, late arrivals and over-crowding which is second to none (or strictly, joint-equal at the bottom of the table).

FGW was the company which was forced to restore some of the Oxford services which it slashed at the beginning of the year after protests both locally and in Parliament. There was a fares strike. Alison Forster, the woman in charge, brazened it out for a few weeks at the turn of the year and then was forced into a humiliating climb-down.

Support OxRailAction

The success of OxRailAction in bringing First Great Western to heel has lessons for those who would take on any large organisation. What worked against FGW will work against Oxford City Council and Oxfordshire County Council.