Better Transport

Wirral Transport Users' Association campaigns on local issues and supports the national organisation in pressing for sustainable transport. We are currently campaigning to improve local rail services, including getting a new station opened on the West Kirby line. We are also working to upgrade the bus system in the area.

The public inquiry into the Mottram-Tintwistle Bypass through the Peak District National Park has been adjourned indefinitely. Ask your MP to demand that the inquiry be abandoned and alternatives to this disastrous road investigated.

The proposed Mottram-Tintwistle Bypass would bypass the villages of Mottram, Tintwistle and Hollingworth in Cheshire and Derbyshire, with a 5.6km road that would link the M67 to the A628 Woodhead Pass.

When the scheme entered the Targeted Programme of Improvements in 2001, the cost was estimated at £90 million. This has now risen to an estimated £223 to £315 million.

The last 1.2km of the proposed bypass would be within the Peak District National Park and decimate a quarry site used by climbers, walkers, and locals alike. A local nature reserve, Swallow's Wood, would be damaged by a 65ft bridge and earth work, carrying three lanes of traffic over what was once a beautiful, quiet wildlife site.

The scheme would lead to increases in traffic on many local roads, including the A628 through the National Park, where traffic levels would increase by 40%. Airborne pollutants and climate changing gases are forecast to increase, with an estimated 19,000 tonnes per year of CO2 generated as a result of the scheme.

Campaigners are calling for rail-freight alternatives and a weight restriction combined with improved public transport measures to restrict the movement of HGVs through the National Park and reduce congestion caused by local commuter traffic.

The group holds regular meetings in the Mottram / Glossop area: email for more details.

Many important transport decisions are made on a regional level. To effect these decisions, lots of different groups concerned with sustainable transport work together through Regional Transport Activists' Roundtables (TARs). There are eight Regional TARs across England.

The North West Transport Activists Roundtable (NW TAR) focuses much of its efforts on trying to get sustainable transport and land use policies adopted at the regional and sub-regional level. Acting as an umbrella body on behalf of many organisations and individuals, we endeavour to influence emerging transport and planning strategies and decisions by taking part in a variety of fora, seminars and conferences, responding to strategic consultations, lobbying elected representatives, officers and board members of public and non-governmental bodies, appearing at public inquiries and examinations in public and serving on a number of regional bodies.  From time to time we make submissions directly – or indirectly via national environmental and sustainable transport bodies – in response to national government invitations for comments on emerging transport policies and to inquiries being run by the House of Commons Transport Committee and we produce occasional reports aimed at influencing decision-makers on a wide range of transport-related issues.

TravelWatch NorthWest is an independent organisation representing all users of public transport in the North West. Membership is open to any not-for-profit organisation representing the interests of users or potential users of public transport.

Our chief purpose is to influence, by research and campaigning, public transport policy in the North West, always with the passengers' interests foremost. We work closely with the North West Regional Assembly, Local Authorities and Transport Operators to help maintain a high profile for public transport in the quest for investment and improvements for passengers.

TravelWatch NorthWest holds meetings in public at various locations in the North West. Meetings are usually held on Saturdays and issues of concern to public transport users are debated.

The Mid-Cheshire Rail Users Association (MCRUA) was formed in 1987 to support users of the Manchester - Stockport - Altrincham - Knutsford - Northwich - Chester Railway Line, usually known as the Mid-Cheshire Line. The Association has a membership of over 600 people.

Whilst the primary reason for MCRUA's existence was the Mid-Cheshire Line, it now also represents users of the Crewe and Hartford to Liverpool services.

It is also strongly supportive of the efforts of the Middlewich Rail Link Campaign to reopen Middlewich station and provide a passenger train service through to Manchester and Crewe. The Association is also well known for the popular excursion trains it has run for some years on its own or in association with other groups.

MCRUA produces a newsletter, the 'Mid-Cheshire Rail Report', three or four times a year to keep its members informed. It usually runs to ten pages with news of MCRUA activities, happenings on the mid-Cheshire lines and other railway related information. In addition MCRUA has a website which gives it a public face and shares up-to-the-minute news.

Chester Cycling Campaign is fighting for a better, greener city for all.  Chester is choking with traffic jams and pollution from cars , yet one in four of these car journeys is less than two miles.  Cycling is cheap, fast, and clean.  It is one part of the solution to these problems.  Chester Cycling Campaign is working with local councils to get serious about encouraging cycling in Chester.