UKIP councillor says we can afford railway renewal
Monday, 13th May 2013.
One of Haverhill's new UKIP Suffolk county councillors has lost no time in stating his support for reviving Haverhill's rail link to Cambridge.
Tony Brown, elected less than a fortnight ago, has written a letter to the media in the run-up to a special meeting abpout rail renewal due to take place in the town next month.
"I hope that it is not just going to be talks about talks," he says. "This could hopefully be a new dawn for the town.
"For too long we have been strangled by just having the A1307 as our only major link with the outside world. It wasn’t good enough when the town’s population was 10,000 and it definitely isn’t good now that we have a population of 27,000 people.
"This is causing businesses problems and the public have not got the transport links they deserve in a modern society.
"For our town to be taken seriously as the expanding tech hub of the future we need the railway now, otherwise we will just be a backwater at the end of a badly congested dangerous road from Cambridge.
"You may ask can we afford it? Well, I think we can. For a start the Government is spending a staggering £53million a day just to be a member of the EU, which they then dictate to us how it can be spent.
"For every £2.50 we pay in they give us back a £1. We also spend a whopping £12billion a year on funding foreign aid (some going to countries that do not even want it). "We also spent £100billion on bailing out the banks at the drop of a hat as soon as they cried bankruptcy, and a high-speed rail link from London to Birmingham that no one really wants to be built that lives in the area, which will cost in the region of £32 billion (a massive vanity project - there is already a reasonable rail link between the two cities).
"And there are many more things that money is wasted on that could be diverted for our rail project. It's about time we had a 21st century rail line for Haverhill and no longer had to put up with the rickety, not-fit-for-purpose A1307.
"I hope that business, public and all parties will support us as we try to get this moving forward with the Government."
Tony Brown, elected less than a fortnight ago, has written a letter to the media in the run-up to a special meeting abpout rail renewal due to take place in the town next month.
"I hope that it is not just going to be talks about talks," he says. "This could hopefully be a new dawn for the town.
"For too long we have been strangled by just having the A1307 as our only major link with the outside world. It wasn’t good enough when the town’s population was 10,000 and it definitely isn’t good now that we have a population of 27,000 people.
"This is causing businesses problems and the public have not got the transport links they deserve in a modern society.
"For our town to be taken seriously as the expanding tech hub of the future we need the railway now, otherwise we will just be a backwater at the end of a badly congested dangerous road from Cambridge.
"You may ask can we afford it? Well, I think we can. For a start the Government is spending a staggering £53million a day just to be a member of the EU, which they then dictate to us how it can be spent.
"For every £2.50 we pay in they give us back a £1. We also spend a whopping £12billion a year on funding foreign aid (some going to countries that do not even want it). "We also spent £100billion on bailing out the banks at the drop of a hat as soon as they cried bankruptcy, and a high-speed rail link from London to Birmingham that no one really wants to be built that lives in the area, which will cost in the region of £32 billion (a massive vanity project - there is already a reasonable rail link between the two cities).
"And there are many more things that money is wasted on that could be diverted for our rail project. It's about time we had a 21st century rail line for Haverhill and no longer had to put up with the rickety, not-fit-for-purpose A1307.
"I hope that business, public and all parties will support us as we try to get this moving forward with the Government."
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