Sam Townend for Bristol North West

“Wasted chance for our railway”

The blame for the sale of Henbury Station to a developer so losing the opportunity for a renewed suburban railway for the North of Bristol lies fairly and squarely with South Gloucestershire Council and not Bristol City Council as suggested by my Conservative opponent (14^th November “Wasted Chance for our railway”).  Let me point out some facts.  The Station is in South Gloucestershire and not Bristol City.  South Gloucestershire Council had an option to buy the station, not Bristol Council.  That Council failed to follow their stated objectives to seek to improve public transport by not exercising that option, not our Council.  If there is negligence in relation to the sale of the Station by the BR Property Board, it lies primarily with her Conservative colleagues who run that Council.  To suggest otherwise is simply to misrepresent the facts.

This opportunity missed by the Tories is worse when you consider that it need not have happened.  The Government has had nearly £50 million pounds on the table for more than a year now to help to provide much-need proper public transport in and around Bristol.  In order for this money to be accessed it required positive commitment from Bristol, which Cllr Bradshaw and others have demonstrated, and from the surrounding authorities of South Gloucestershire, North Somerset and BaNES.  It is increasingly plain that, in order perhaps to protect their own petty public transport empires, the surrounding authorities have been dragging their feet.  Had they embraced the idea of the four Councils working together immediately that money might have been available to use collectively to buy the site.  These three Councils share one characteristic- they are all Conservative run.    

Sam Townend