LATEST TRANSPORT NEWS
- from Moor Park Explore Club

NORTH EAST ACTION ON TRANSPORT

Following the two Transport Conferences a steering group was set up involving members from interested groups who attended the conferences.

Eleven people attended with three apologies, as it was the first meeting we asked for nominations for Chair:

John Telfer (Newcastle Disabilities Forum) agreed to the job.

Other points covered were:
A discussion about the aims & objectives, geographical boundaries of the Group. This was a wide-ranging discussion, some of the points were: -

• Should the group cover the whole of Tyne & Wear? The name of NEAT was chosen for the Region.
• Consultation is for the people not with the people.
• There is a lot of money available for Capital schemes but little for running costs.
• The withdrawal of bus services is continuing as companies withdraw to their core network, one member took 1hr 20 mins to get to Newcastle to attend this meeting.
• It was felt that if the companies listened and improved services the decline in bus usage would be halted.
• Further withdrawals will increase social exclusion and access to essential services. GP's and Hospitals are becoming more difficult to access.
• There is no obvious mechanism for companies to listen to the community.
• There is increasing lack of competition so when a company withdraws a service nobody else takes it on.

It was agreed that we set up a task list and had a discussion around what we wanted from it and who would perform the task, the result of the first one was.

TASK LIST

1. Who Are the accountable people in Bus companies? - Don Kent
2. Contact Stephen Byers. - Geoff O Brien
3. Contact Cathie Francis. - Geoff O Brien
4. Contact Traffic Commissioners. - Don Kent
5. Clarify what support there is in the Council. - Geoff O Brien
6. Try to open a regular consultation session with companies. Make it formal.
7. Record what has been agreed by the companies.
8. Investigate the split between the planning and the operating wings of companies.
9. Investigate a franchise system for the North East.
10. Get companies mission statements. - Don Kent

The next meeting of this group will be held on Tuesday 29th January 2002.

TRANSPORT RESEARCH

In the week between Christmas and New Year, Market Research Ltd carried out a door-to-door survey on Transport on behalf of the Social Inclusion Unit in the Moor Park Area.

The people that took part were asked if they would be interested in attending a focus group at a later date to discuss the subject further.

The focus groups were held in the Community Centre on Thursday 24th January between 1.30pm and 5.30pm with ten people attending each session. Each session lasted about two hours with a good mix of ages and gender in each session.

Having completed the survey at home as a member of the Community I was invited to attend the second session.

It was interesting to note that no one attended this session that had been involved in the original report, which was compiled at Moor Park.

The problems under discussion varied from the removal of essential bus services, late time keeping, not turning up, ect: I have asked for a copy of the final report and will publish the findings on this page when we get them.

MEETING AT CAMBRIDGE

Two members of our group have been invited to a meeting on transport at the Lucy Cavendish College in Cambridge on Friday 1st February.

Both Sharon MacInnes and Margaret Wright will be attending from Moor Park. Margaret Grieco,Steven Little and Len Holmes and hopefully Marion Harrison will also be there, it is also hoped that Cathie Francis Policy Advisor for the Cabinet Office for Social Inclusion will also be present.

We will update this site when we come back next week with information on the meeting and our feelings on how it went from a Community angle.

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