On the doorstep… car parking, flooding and the paddling pool

I’ve barely started canvassing (well it’s cold out!) but a number of issues have already been raised with me, including:

• Car parking at the Registry Office in Cottingburn: aside from the workforce parking, it is used as free longstay car parking by the general public. There are no regulations for the County’s traffic wardens to enforce – and no car parking for people using the Registry Office. The official line is that all Registry Office appointments are now at the Town Hall so no visitor parking is needed. But that is evidently not the case in practice. In any event, what is NCC doing allowing unregulated free car parking with access from Cottingwood Lane?

• Flooding at Lancaster Park: the drainage on the central field has been engineered wrongly and the field and footpaths flood regularly threatening nearby houses. I raised this at MTC recently but for some reason the press quoted other councillors not me. The wider issue is that there are flooding hazards all over Morpeth that won’t be addressed by the EA town centre scheme – and many likely to be made worse by development in the future. I’m working to make sure all these hazards are featured in the Morpeth Neighbourhood Plan.

• Crafting Centre: Morpeth could do with a centre equipped for crafting – from woodturning to silversmithing to silkpainting – as well as selling local crafts like the Chantry or the new gallery up at Northgate. Such workshops could not only offer facilities for local people but they could combine with local B&Bs etc to offer weekend or weeklong ‘interest holidays’ for visitors.

• Carlisle Park Paddling Pool: It’s great the Town Council runs this and it is hugely popular during the summer, but it is open from the end of May to mid September. Apparently, this is a quirk of the insurance cover (which is substantial) – but it has been suggested to me that it’d be better to open at beginning of May and run through the early September.

So – not everyone is talking about the traffic lights, but don’t get me started on that…

The Station Bus?

Following on from previous posts – I see the M3 Bus Service (Lancaster Park to Stobhill Grange) is now labelled as ‘Morpeth Rail Station’.

Given that it’s election season – I’m going to take full credit for that change which obviously happened entirely as a result of one letter I wrote to Astleys who operate the service.

It does mean that my newsletter leaflet coming out next week (look out for it!) already has one item out-of-date. That’s the price you pay for being a dynamic councillor, I guess.

M3 Bus Service

You’ll recall the suggestion that the M3 bus serving Lancaster Park might pick up more passengers if it was identified as the ‘Station Bus’ rather than having Stobhill on its destination board.

Well I’ve had a response from Northumberland CC, Richard Burley (Acting Network Officer Integrated Transport Unit) wrote:

“We are not sure it would be useful to market this service as a "station bus" as it doesn't go to the station (the turning circle by the station entrance has been unused for years [my italics]). If it did it wouldn't connect with the trains very well, and the bus doesn't run at commuter times, which is when we might possibly expect people to want to connect into the trains. We would be vulnerable to complaints if we ran a "station bus" in these circumstances. Also the M3 is no more a station bus than Arriva's 447/8 which runs along the same road from Kirkhill, more frequently.

“If a budget and other resources were available, we could perhaps prepare a leaflet to show all the town routes in Morpeth to promote buses more generally, taking into account possible changes to timetables at short notice. A simpler possibility might be to prepare a leaflet just for Astley's contracted services, mentioning that they go quite close to the station. In the longer term, consideration is currently being given to improving the junction between the station and A192 which might encourage commercial operators to provide better links to the station.”

Not really very encouraging!

Meanwhile note that the M3 bus more often than not now just has the signboard ‘Astley’ with no destination information. I’m told that Astley’s are interested in picking up more passengers – but don’t really want to engage NCC bureaucracy and who can blame them. However – I think they’d do very well to change the route by actually turning in to the station and marketing it as the station bus. I’d be more happy to ‘engage council bureaucracy’ in that cause!

But, the real prize, as Richard Burley suggests, is to get Arriva's buses to turn into the station. Apart from Town Centre and bus station, the 447 / 448 would also serve Kirkhill, Hepscott Park, Nedderton and Bedlington, the 343 and X18 would serve Guide Post etc. Perhaps this would be more appealing to Arriva if and when the Coopies Lane junction improvements are made.

Bus Service to Morpeth Station

Did you know that the M3 bus service provides a direct link from Lancaster Park to Morpeth Rail Station?
No?
Well - for reasons best known to themselves - NCC and Astley Coaches who run the service are keeping it a secret. The bus destination boards and the bus stop timetables just show it as the 'Stobhill bus' not the 'station bus'. John Earl writes:

"I was once again on the M3 bus to the station in Morpeth this week, and it seems ludicrous that this bus runs around almost empty, partly because no-one has seen fit to label it clearly as the station bus. If the inhabitants of Lancaster Park knew that it was a direct link with the station, for the same price (i.e. £1) as going to the centre of town, and therefore a quarter the price of a taxi, I`m sure that more people would use it and it might mean a few more leaving their cars at home. Could you contact the people who could label this correctly on the timetables (at present it is only labelled to Stobhill)?"