Your MP writes (From Worcester News)

Your MP writes

9:00am Thursday 25th January 2007

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It’s been a busy time since Christmas in Worcestershire and there’s been some good news. Network Rail will redouble the Cotswold line, at least in part, meaning the scandalously unreliable rail services we currently enjoy – if that’s the word – should improve in a couple of years’ time.

I’m happy to take some of the credit for this – I have been campaigning on the subject for all my nearly 15 years as an MP. I can’t help reflecting, though, that this long overdue move might have something to do with the fact David Cameron, leader of the opposition and Britain’s next Prime Minister, is the MP for seven of the line’s stations. In any event, I will be working hard with him to ensure Network Rail keeps its promises.
Mind you, we’ll need that extra rail capacity if the Government gets its way and dumps thousands of extra houses in south Worcestershire, most of which should really be built in the Birmingham conurbation, not on our green fields.
The Worcester News has done a great job explaining these complicated proposals, the West Midlands Regional Spatial Strategy Revision, to us. I hope we will all come together to challenge these mind-blowing ideas.
The scale of what is proposed is breathtaking – it’s house building on the scale of what happened in Warndon and St Peter’s all over again for the next 20 years. We’ll need all the transport, health and education services we can get to keep pace with this expansion.
That’s what makes the idea of building a huge recycling centre at Norton, right by the site for the new Worcestershire parkway station, so crazy. All those heavy lorries, carrying waste from as far away as the Welsh borders, will make life impossible on the road out to the station and really undermine its viability. When, oh when, will we get a joined-up Government?
To add to our transport woes, rogue wheel clampers have moved into our county. My post bag has been full with complaints about the bad behaviour of two companies. I’m calling on the Government to make the clamping companies subject to the laws of theft and extortion. Let me know if you have a bad experience of one of these firms – we’ll need all the evidence we can get to secure a change in the law.