John McDonnell
WOKINGHAM TIMES
I was pleased to see the statement from Wokingham Council that none of the six developer proposals for Elms Field is right for Wokingham. Many people were worried that each one of the schemes represented too much building where people value green space. I have talked to Councillors about the south of the town, and have stressed that protecting and enhancing green space must be a central part of any plan. I would also like to see the car parks, Wellington House and the other untidy and tarmac covered areas replaced with something much better. I understand the Council will now come forward with proposals that reflect the opinions expressed during the consultation. We will then all have a chance to comment on those.
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I am just finishing answering all the emails and letters I have received from around the country following publication of the Conservatives Economic Policy Review. About half the review received little or not comment. Proposals to strengthen the framework for controlling money and interest rates, a hot topic in world markets, passed without discussion. Important proposals to provide more energy, water, anti flooding and transport capacity also filled few national column inches. Tax and regulation were the things everyone wished to write about, and they did so at great length, with varying degrees of success linked to whether they had bothered to read the Report or not. They all ignored training, glossed over pensions and said practically nothing about the chapter on managing the public sector better.
As always with these things the relatively unimportant or the more unusual items were highlighted. My suggestion that where there were two very wide pavements or spare space Councils could consider putting in a cycle lane to segregate cyclists from both traffic and pedestrians became “Redwood wants people to ride on pavements!” Let me reassure you that I have no such plans, and will not be lobbying the local Council to make it legal in Wokingham.
My proposal that we need to look at ways or running more trains an hour on busy lines, where at the moment only 20 trains are permitted to travel on each line, became a firm recommendation of rubber tyres for all trains.
The good news is that Network Rail now accepts that the current technology of heavy trains with steel wheels on steel tracks is not working well, leading to the need for long gaps between trains to keep them safe. They are proposing buying lighter weight trains, which would allow an increase in the numbers of trains per hour because they would brake and accelerate more effectively. That would be a start, as we are chronically short of train capacity at morning and evening peaks into and out of the big cities. If I were running the UK railways I would scour the world for the best technology to maximise use of the tracks, and hold a competition for the next generation of trains that could grip the rails better to encourage much better performance. The railways are falling behind the auto industry in striving for more fuel efficient greener solutions. Too many of the trains are too old, too heavy and far too fuel inefficient.
