GREENS WELCOME PUBLIC OWNERSHIP OF EAST COAST RAIL
SERVICE
The Green Party is today welcoming the Government's move to bring back into public
ownership the East Coast mainline, from National Express, but is repeating its call for
the full re-nationalisation of the railways.
Whilst the Government has today announced that the East Coast mainline service is to be
brought back into public ownership, but there remains doubt as to whether this will be
permanent or if another franchise bid could succeed given the financial trouble that has
hit National Express. And whilst National Express has lost the service annoucned today,
under cross-default clauses, the Transport Secretary, Lord Adonis, could strip National
Express of all its contracts, now that the group has handed back one franchise. In Eastern
Region this would include the Southend line and the main Norwich-London line and
connecting branch lines.
The Green Party remains the only major party in Britain to consistently call for the full
re-nationalisation of the railways.
Rupert Read, candidate for Norwich North and Green Party spokesperson on public services,
said:
"Train privatisation, from the beginning, was a very flawed model. We can't keep
socialising private companies' losses and privatising their profits. We need a national
train network under direct public control and with full public accountability.
National Express must pay back whatever monies are outstanding from their rail franchise
of the East Coast Main Line - it would be quite wrong for National Express to continue to
profit on some lines, while the taxpayer has to foot the bill on others. To use the
Government's own rhetoric, this should be a zero-tolerance issue."
Sir Richard Branson, co-owner of the Virgin West Coast franchise, has expressed an
interest in bidding for the East Coast franchise if it became available.
Rupert Read responded to this by saying
"Virgin would then have control of England-Scotland services, as well as London to
Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds and Doncaster. The entire idea of privatisation
was to inject competition, and this would be substituting a public monopoly for a private
monopoly. That cannot be allowed to happen, and as a Green MP for Norwich North, I would
be absolutely steadfast in resisting it." |
Go Wild with the National Trust
Running carefree and playing games in a garden or park is Britain’s favourite
memory of childhood, the National Trust reveals today. A survey of 3,000 parents across
the UK found that; playing in the park was the favourite memory for 25 per cent, with
building a den second (21 per cent) and seeing wildlife in its natural habitat third (20
per cent). Last year, the National Trust found that children spent so little time
outdoors that common British wildlife was alien to them, with one in three unable to
identify a magpie and half confused between bees and wasps.
Stuart Warrington, is the National Trust’s Nature Conservation Advisor; “To
combat this, the National Trust has today launched a campaign to get our youngsters off
the sofa and into the great outdoors. With more than 1,000 specific ‘wild child’
events across the country, designed to encourage children’s interest in local
wildlife, we hope to put them back in touch with nature”. Lots of National
Trust properties also have tracker packs. A great way to explore the magic and mystery of
some of the National Trusts parks and gardens - borrow a backpack containing binoculars, a
bug pot, identification packs and lots of other fun stuff to help children find out more
about wildlife.
As well as asking for people’s favourite memory, the survey also found:
38% of children now spend less than an hour a day outdoors.
Almost a quarter (23%) of youngsters spend more than 14hrs a week sat in front of a TV or
computer screen.
87%of parents wish their children spent more time outside -Yet one in four won’t
allow them to do the things they did as children because they are worried about safety.
While only one in four children has played tennis in the past year, twice as many have
played the sport on computers such as Nintendo Wiis or Xboxes.
Fewer than one in 20 (4 %) said that playing computer games was their favourite childhood
memory.
So, visit the National Trust this summer and escape into the great outdoors. Choose from a
series of exciting family challenges from pond-dipping and bug-hunting to animal-tracking
and wilderness-exploring. This year’s school holidays just got exciting! |
