WITH the summer Sunday’s train service between Okehampton and Exeter due to start in May, Connect Bude committee members, at a meeting at the Falcon Hotel on Tuesday March 19, decided to acquire from GWR an aluminium frame to display the timetable in the town’s bus shelter, writes Christine Williams.

They hope it will withstand the kind of vandalism suffered by the timetable last year. Thousands of leaflets were being prepared to advertise the service.

As a follow-up to the findings of surveys conducted over the past eleven years into the demand for reinstating a passenger train service in the former ‘rail corridor’ to the west of Okehampton towards Bude, Dr Michael Ireland of Okerail proposed that they make preparations to carry out a new survey.

He suggested that at their next meeting they prepare a questionnaire to be distributed locally, online or in face-to-face contact.

This would provide evidence to allow them to make a feasibility study. He suggested they research the strategy of the Lynton and Barnstaple Railway which had ambitious plans to reinstate a section of their track.

The committee studied a response to a recent consultation carried out by Exeter Transport Strategy which had been prepared by David Hill Smith, a rail consultant specialising in strategic and technical advice to railway organisations, on behalf of Connect Bude.

It stated that the environmental benefits of a switch to public transport, especially rail, leading to an improvement in air quality, would be substantial.

It welcomed the vision of Exeter as the hub of a city region which provided rail services to Okehampton and beyond as part of an enlarged Devon metro rail network.

Michael Moore drew attention to an article in the current issue of Rail magazine which stated that the average transport spend per head in the South West was £227.97 compared with £573.25 in Scotland.

Apart from the East Midlands the South West had the lowest per capita spend in the UK.

Enthusiasts of the songs of Flanders and Swann will not want to miss a fundraising event in aid of Connect Bude entitled ‘Swann Songs’ at the Falcon Hotel on April 10 at 7.30pm.