Campaign for transport from Bleasby
Bleasby Parish Council
Friday, 4 February 2022
Some of you may or may not know that I have been working on a survey with the help of the Parish Council and local residents to understand the public transport needs of our villages. I’m hoping to use the results from the survey in order to persuade EMR to give us an improved rail service at Bleasby Station.
A paper survey has been included in the winter edition of Bleasby News and there is also this electronic version for you to complete: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/BL9SKBS
I’m pleased to see a very good response already. We began distributing the electronic survey in January and have had over 90 completed returned already! Please feel free to share it with anyone you believe would want their voice to be heard. The deadline for completed surveys is 28 February.
Below you will find some background information and the details of people who you can contact directly to express your personal views on this matter.
Have you heard of the term transportation poverty?
Transport poverty refers to households and individuals who struggle or are unable to make the journeys that they need. There are several definitions, but they tend to comprise low income, poor availability of public transport and needing a long time to access essential services. Bleasby is suffering from transportation poverty.
Why should you care? Well, as government budgets continue to get sliced and diced, the outlining rural areas will more than likely be impacted firstly.
How does this effect you, when you have a car?
Well, think of the long term needs of your family and your community. If we lose this service, all of our house prices will be negatively impacted by this.
As some of you may already be aware, myself and some other people in the village have been trying our best to contact East Midlands Rail in hopes of having them grant a consultation with people in our village with the goal of providing our community with a rail service that serves our village.
As you all will be well aware, here in Bleasby our bus service and rail service are inadequate. A member of our community wrote to our MP about this issue and was told we have a bus service in Thurgarton. Walk there to get to where you need to go to. This is not always possible for everyone in our village to physically do that and at all times of the day and night it could be dangerous as well. We have been told we should be satisfied with the hubs in Fiskerton and Lowdham to meet our needs, but if you don’t drive, can’t afford a car or a second family car, then you’ll agree that these options aren’t enough to meet our village’s long term needs. Many of these station villages also do not suffer the inconvenience with multiple times an hour of having the road closed so a train can come through. At least we should benefit from a better service, not worse.
What can we all do about this?
When you do use the train, please prepay for it in advance using an app so you are counted. Often you will find there isn’t anyone collecting our fares, so EMR is not counting us as using it. Whilst a free ride is nice in the short term if we don't start registering every journey our service will be decreased or disappear entirely.
Please write to the following people to have your voice be heard:
Our MP Robert Jenrick-
Cllr Roger Blaney-
Cllr Sue Saddington-
Parish Council-
East Midlands Rail- Customer Service 03457 125678
Janene Scurfield
Find Bleasby Parish Council
Bleasby, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire