Post Comment: New station highlights old problems

THE opening of the new East Midlands Parkway station brings Notts' old transport problems into sharp focus.

The Parkway will offer commuters more choice and in time will prove to be an attractive option for travelling to London.

But when it opens later this month, the Parkway looks set to suffer as a result of the second-rate rail links that exist from Nottingham and the congested A453.

Rail campaigners point out that due to a lack of capacity on the Midland Mainline (and prioritisation of towns and cities on the track further south) services from East Midlands Parkway are bunched into an 11 minute period during most of the day.

This makes the station less attractive to car drivers, who know they will have to wait the best part of an hour if they miss the 11 minute slot.

And drivers can expect delays on journeys to the station. Most will have to battle their way along the A453 where work on long-promised improvements is yet to begin.

The fact these problems are well known does not mitigate their impact and raises questions about transport planning.

Nottingham has suffered for too long from poor transport connections, exacerbated by a failure to lobby effectively for improvement.

Since the opening of the new station again highlights the shortcomings, we make no apology for using this as an opportunity to make the points once more.

Indeed, we will keep pushing East Midlands Trains, Network Rail and Government policy makers until they combine to provide the transport infrastructure Nottingham needs.