letter to the Gazette, 13/5/10
Sep. 27th, 2017 09:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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colchesterfoeThe Gazette, Postbag.
Improve bus station to give Vaf a boost
Dear Editor,
The only party campaigning for a pedestrianised High Street has just lost three seats. This would destroy our local through bus routes, disadvantage elderly and mobility-impaired bus users and reduce town centre bus shoppers from the 100,000 plus people using the buses every week at the moment. It would lose trade in High Street and in the already pedestrianised town centre.
Let's hope the new administration insists on the county council finishing the almost-completed carfree High Street which council tax payers have paid for and were promised a decade ago? This would cut towncentre congestion and pollution and improve bus reliability.
The discredited and misplaced Vaf was built on part of public land designated by the county council by legal covenant for our bus station. Yet the county council now says the vital central bus and coach interchange must close in 2012 with no alternative site.
To improve the public acceptability of the Vaf we should retain and upgrade the current bus station for the 21st century as set out in Colchester's transport plan and approved by the Inspector in the apparently sacrosanct Local Development Framework. It should re-open the access for buses from East Hill under the canopy of the Vaf and would provide coach access for visitors to the Vaf.
During the pre-election frenzy other crazy unworkable mirage transport plans were hyped up for the town centre, at North Station and - finally - a ridiculous and costly bus-only lane from the Hythe rail station to the town rail station at St Botolph's. Could the hidden agenda here possibly be to get rid of the well-used towncentre rail station instead of doubling its frequency and use?
Yours sincerely,
Paula Whitney, Co-ordinator,
Colchester Friends of the Earth,
4 Shears Crescent,
West Mersea, Essex, CO5 8AR.
Improve bus station to give Vaf a boost
Dear Editor,
The only party campaigning for a pedestrianised High Street has just lost three seats. This would destroy our local through bus routes, disadvantage elderly and mobility-impaired bus users and reduce town centre bus shoppers from the 100,000 plus people using the buses every week at the moment. It would lose trade in High Street and in the already pedestrianised town centre.
Let's hope the new administration insists on the county council finishing the almost-completed carfree High Street which council tax payers have paid for and were promised a decade ago? This would cut towncentre congestion and pollution and improve bus reliability.
The discredited and misplaced Vaf was built on part of public land designated by the county council by legal covenant for our bus station. Yet the county council now says the vital central bus and coach interchange must close in 2012 with no alternative site.
To improve the public acceptability of the Vaf we should retain and upgrade the current bus station for the 21st century as set out in Colchester's transport plan and approved by the Inspector in the apparently sacrosanct Local Development Framework. It should re-open the access for buses from East Hill under the canopy of the Vaf and would provide coach access for visitors to the Vaf.
During the pre-election frenzy other crazy unworkable mirage transport plans were hyped up for the town centre, at North Station and - finally - a ridiculous and costly bus-only lane from the Hythe rail station to the town rail station at St Botolph's. Could the hidden agenda here possibly be to get rid of the well-used towncentre rail station instead of doubling its frequency and use?
Yours sincerely,
Paula Whitney, Co-ordinator,
Colchester Friends of the Earth,
4 Shears Crescent,
West Mersea, Essex, CO5 8AR.
