CORNWALL Council having declared a climate change crisis and now committed to sustainable transport, the environmental and economic benefits of restoring a rail link to the Bude and Holsworthy areas were the dominant themes throughout the third annual meeting of Connect Bude, held at Bude’s Parkhouse Centre on Saturday, October 19, writes Christine Williams.

Having welcomed a good attendance of members, supporters and members of the public, Connect Bude chairman Richard Wolfenden-Brown introduced the newly elected committee and Mike Moore’s financial report showed that they had a healthy balance. Mr Wolfenden-Brown proceeded to outline the progress they had made over the past twelve months. At the annual meeting in 2017 they had just 16 members, so it was encouraging that they currently have 311 members and supporters from all over the country, including 19 corporate members.

It was pleasing that the two local Conservative MPs, Scott Mann (North Cornwall) and Geoffrey Cox (Torridge and West Devon), were among the supporters. Indeed Mr Mann had been invited to speak at the meeting, but due to Parliament sitting on that Saturday he was unable to attend, so Mr Wolfenden-Brown read out a letter from him in which he said he had raised the case for connecting Bude to the national network with two Secretaries of State for Transport, emphasising the level of support for it in the local area.

Mr Wolfenden-Brown explained that Connect Bude’s new promotional leaflets had been enthusiastically received and he asked those present to help to distribute them door-to-door on their street. There had been many membership drives at events such as the model railway exhibition, farmers’ markets, the heritage day and Bude Together meetings, a talk had been given to Bude’s U3A and regular OkeRail forum meetings attended. They had contributed to the Exeter Transport Strategy pointing out that the use of the line for a daily service from Okehampton to Exeter would significantly cut the number of car journeys to Exeter from North Cornwall. This was borne out by the popularity of the Sunday service from Okehampton to Exeter this summer with 7,800 passenger trips over the period of operation from May to September 2019, up from 6,500 the previous year. In conjunction with OkeRail, a rail trip from Okehampton to Dorchester and Weymouth was run on September 14 with 450 passengers. Several members present said it had been a very enjoyable trip.

Mr Wolfenden-Brown hoped to launch an action group to increase membership. Meeting quarterly, they would plan various activities such as coffee mornings, local events etcetera. He then read extracts from recent reports and comments by leading public figures which stressed the importance of local and regional connectivity as a key driver of economic, social, educational cultural and well-being benefits for cut-off communities. There would also be genuine environmental benefits, so vital at a time of climate crisis. All this suggested that the aims of Connect Bude were absolutely in line with an emerging shift in attitude towards public transport policy.

After attending a Connect Bude committee meeting Michael Muldowney, Mr Mann’s senior communications officer, had written to GWR about their customer and community fund. With the encouragement of GWR’s managing director, Mark Hopwood, Connect Bude had put in a bid for funding needed to make a business case for extending the railway from Okehampton to Holsworthy.

For four years since the storm which had cut the main line to Cornwall at Dawlish Mr Mann had asked in the House of Commons whether there were any proposals for an alternative such as the northern route from Exeter to Plymouth via Okehampton and Tavistock. With a link to Bude it would add huge benefits to the economic potential of North Cornwall. However, four years later they were still waiting for a response. Indeed Dr Michael Ireland of OkeRail stated that although GWR was behind the campaign to link up with Okehampton he had just heard the disappointing news that Devon County Council had withdrawn support for the route from Okehampton to Plymouth via Tavistock and Bere Alston and were considering a tram link between Plymouth and Tavistock. He said they must continue to press Devon County Council to reappraise this decision.

During open discussion Chris Jewell stressed the need to involve young people in their campaign.

Bude-Stratton mayor Bob Willingham said that if a train arriving at Exeter was delayed and the last connecting No 6 bus had departed GWR would pay for a taxi to Bude. Mr Wolfenden-Brown recounted the experience of a lifeguard travelling from Dublin to Bude who was carrying a surfboard as luggage. He had had no issues on the plane to Bristol or the train to Exeter, but when the connecting bus to Bude arrived the driver said, ‘You can’t bring that on here’. The young man had to pay for a taxi to Bude.

Rail consultant David Hill-Smith asked for anyone present, especially businesses, to provide evidence for the wider economic case for extending the line towards Bude and for a Holsworthy Parkway station. He specifically mentioned the environmental benefits, which were growing in importance and significance and said that the business case would be weak if they only considered direct costs and revenues, but could be improved if all the wider social and environmental benefits that would arise for the local population were taken into account. Danny Chambers, prospective Liberal Democrat candidate for North Cornwall, agreed that to help the business case they should emphasise the importance of environmental issues and the wider economic benefits. He pledged his support to Connect Bude’s aims and objectives.

Following the meeting Mr Hill-Smith provided some recent official research about the environmental benefits of rail, which concluded that road transport consumed six times more energy than the equivalent rail, that road it emitted nine times more CO2, generated eight times more air pollution and was 12 times more expensive in terms of external costs to society than rail.

As for the future plans, Mr Wolfenden-Brown said they would continue to lobby elected representatives and GWR to encourage them to name the day that the Okehampton to Exeter line would reopen. They would campaign for a fast direct, integrated and comfortable coach service from Bude and Holsworthy to link with the new rail service at Okehampton as a first step to a rail service towards Bude. They would encourage GWR and OkeRail to initiate more special trains next year in order to demonstrate the demand for the line and to maintain momentum towards the reinstatement of daily services to and from Exeter. They would urge cross border collaboration between Cornwall Council and Devon County Council and make sure that Bude was not left out of the recently announced trial ‘superbus’ initiative in Cornwall. They would continue to support the northern route to Plymouth via Tavistock and politely but persuasively demand the sort of public transport that other communities across the country take for granted. Bude and Holsworthy were geographically remote but they did not need to be isolated.