Liberal Democrats in Blaydon welcome transport plans

TRAVEL and transport will improve in Blaydon constituency and on Tyneside if new Liberal Democrat transport policies are put into operation, claim local members of the party.

The policies were launched on 3rd June by Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg. The proposals include improving bus services by putting them under the control of local councils where bus companies have failed to provide improvements themselves; improving local rail services; introducing strong environmental criteria for new roads and building a high speed rail network to cut journey times for longer distance travel.

“There are radical policies which will help address some of the transport problems on Tyneside,” said Councillor Peter Maughan, who is Parliamentary Spokesman for Blaydon.

“I am very pleased about the proposals to build a dedicated high speed rail service. Current transport links between the North East and the South East and London are not good enough. It is vital for our regional economy that we have better links to the capital.

“By building a high speed rail link, we will cut journey times to London. With the current East Coast Line virtually fully used, we will need the additional high speed link if more people are to travel to and from the North East.

“If we don’t build the high speed link, the inevitable result is that more people will have to travel by car instead, leading to more congestion and pollution.

“Transport is now high on people’s lists of concerns. Despite lots of talk by Labour, public transport is expensive and plagued by problems of decades of failure to invest in it by both Labour and Conservative governments.

“With the cost of driving shooting up, bus and rail services on Tyneside desperately need a boost. Our proposals will help to create a modern local transport system fit for the decades to come, rather than for decades ago.

“The policy proposals will be debated at our conference in September and before then, members in Blaydon will be discussing them at our regular meetings. We are looking forward to a good debate.”