Letters - January 19, 2019

Great to see MP Paul Maynard's vision for transport network
Paul Maynard MPPaul Maynard MP
Paul Maynard MP

I was pleased to read in The Gazette about Paul Maynard MP’s bold plans to expand the Fylde coast’s light rail network. Across the UK tram schemes are booming, delivering new connections and taking traffic off our roads.

The Fylde coast tramway is one of the real gems of the area, not just an historical attraction but an asset for local people. It is great to see somebody has the ambition and the vision to grow the network and to join up our local communities.

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For Fleetwood, light rail is the best way to reconnect the town to the rail network. Ten-minute frequency light rail services, carrying passengers to a step-free interchange at Poulton,

restoring a link lost when the Beeching axe fell.

In my role as a Lancashire County councillor, I am working on building an Air Quality Champions Network across Lancashire, investing in environmentally friendly transport solutions like this brilliant scheme is a top priority.

I know there has been a local campaign to put Fleetwood Back on Track. But other than talk and gather signatures, the group has achieved little of note. They have staged a good protest but delivered little to nothing in terms of results. Talk is all well and good but only actions will deliver this much-needed new transport link. Paul Maynard has come up with a proposal and has met with the people that matters to deliver an initial report. That is now with Transport Ministers who will hopefully, seeing the potential of this plan, decide to fund the next step - under legislation championed by Mr Maynard and Conservatives in Parliament.

And the vision isn’t limited to one three-mile line, it’s about a strategic approach, bringing new connection opportunities for the whole area. This report is just the start. More detailed work is required and I will support Mr Maynard is everything he is doing to restore services along the Fleetwood to Poulton corridor. Labour councillors leading the Back on Track group have shown again that their party talks a good game but only Conservatives deliver. I hope they will see sense and support this fantastic scheme.

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I’m also aware of the work of the Poulton and Wyre Railway Society and know how hard they have worked to raise money and clear sections of the line. I hope their heritage proposals can be accommodated. However, I’m not sure commuters along the line would wish to rely on volunteers and a 1950s diesel train to deliver their national rail connection. Light rail is cheap, environmentally friendly and reliable. Hopefully, eventually, we’ll be able to deliver customers to a heritage rail attraction onboard a brand new, state-of-the-art tram.

Coun Charlie Edwards

Parliamentary Spokesman for Lancaster and Fleetwood Conservatives

Brexit

Corbyn and Marxist pals are old hat

Jeremy Corbyn’s insistence that the Prime Minister removes a no deal off the table, clearly shows his true colours. It would also telegraph our intentions to Brussels.

The bureaucrats know the only other option is for a customs union scenario whereby the UK would be compelled to continue with free-movement, paying billions into EU coffers and negate us from seeking our own trade deals with the rest of the world. We would leave in name only and be subservient rule-takers, owned by the federalists.

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Corbyn and his strike-ridden Marxist doctrine that many of us lived through in the 1970s, is old hat and has failed abysmally wherever in the globe it has been applied. We need to be free of it!

Furthermore, the young who support this man should keep in mind they are likely to have young families when the EU begins to unravel in a decade or so time.

And I do hope that the Labour heartlands that voted leave will remember his treachery at the next election.

Jim Sokol

Via email

Brexit

Like voting for the Titanic captain

The contradictory votes in Parliament concerning Theresa May’s Brexit proposals and Jeremy Corbyn’s No Confidence in her Government, could be compared to the Titanic voyage.

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Imagine the doomed passengers and crew blaming the captain for the iceberg collision. They then vote for him getting a place in the lifeboat, not only that, wishing him to continue as captain in Titanic’s sister ship.

As a novel it would be unbelievable. Just as these votes are.

Denis Lee

Ashton