This page was last edited at 1920 GMT London Monday 8 September 2008:
KHOODEELAAR! is republishing the following comment piece by-lined to Andrew Gilligan and carried in the print editions of today's London EVENING nostandards STANDARD. Why we are doing so? As part of the evidence that the EVENING nostandards STANDARD is still treating CRASSrail as a cult item and phenomenon,, always to be left out of any critical assessment or evaluation. We note that the Gilligan piece is apparently an objective attack on ken Livingstone's recorded mess at the TfL. Yet the piece makes an exception of CRASSrail. Describing CRASSRAIL as a 'project of real worth'. This is contradictory., and dishonest. Whether this phrase was inserted by Veronica Wadley or whether itv was Gilligan who wrote it himself is not known as yet. But the fact is that the piece is contradictory because of that plug in it for CRASSrail. Assuming that Gilligan wrote it himself, it is clear on that evidence that Gilligan is just as dishonest as anyone else that has been peddling Crassrail... On that evidence, Gilligan's claimed objectivity in the rest fo the item falls. [To be continued]
"
It’s time to turn your attention to TfL, Boris
Andrew Gilligan
08.09.08
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How magnificently brazen it was to see Ken Livingstone attacking Boris's TfL fares increase last week.
This rise, of inflation plus one per cent from January 2009, is, of course, the exact same package which the ex-Great Helmsman himself secretly agreed on 24 October last year.
The only difference, as emails leaked to the Standard in April showed, was that to the horror of his officials, Mr Livingstone simply decided to ignore the decision.
We've short memories, Ken, but not that short. And remind me: just which Mayor was it who raised fares by up to one-third in 2007? Would that have been you, or a totally different one?
The real problem is not that Boris has kept Ken's 2009 fares plan but that he has, so far, left almost everything else about Livingstone's TfL intact, too. It's a problem because TfL is the Ed Balls of public administration: nothing like as good as it thinks it is.
It genuinely believes, in the words of its commissioner, Peter Hendy, that it is an “efficient and effective” provider of bus and train services.
In fact, under Livingstone and Hendy's stewardship, it has achieved the worst of all worlds: rapacious fares, vast public subsidy and often mediocre service.
The buses have improved, though at a disproportionate, unsustainable cost (bus subsidy has risen about 1,300 per cent, while passengers have risen about 45 per cent). But the Tube is the least-reliable, worst-managed metro in Western Europe, and is getting worse, not better. It is hard to overstate the damage it does to London's international reputation and to Londoners' blood pressure.
TfL genuinely believes itself a world leader which other cities follow. Actually, other cities are surprised at our backwardness in, for instance, providing clean public transport. Even the buses in Delhi have been using cleaner fuels for years — but London's bus fleet remains 99.9 per cent diesel. In terms of air pollution (different from C02), TfL buses are among the most poisonous things on the road in London today, directly responsible for the deaths of dozens of Londoners each year.
No other city has followed London's model of the congestion charge, for the good reason that it uses crude, old technology and has, partly as a result, stopped reducing congestion.
TfL does, however, lead the world in pointless extravagance, with 123 of its managers earning more than £100,000 a year and fortunes wasted on vanity projects like the “Greenwich Waterfront Transit” (a six-mile bus route — again diesel — costing £20 million). Hence the high fares.
Now, with big bills looming for projects of real worth such as Crossrail, fare rises alone, however necessary, won't pay for everything. The bus and rail services London depends on simply cannot survive at their current levels unless TfL takes a crash diet.
But four months in, marvels one senior TfL figure, “Boris's arrival has made no difference whatever. It's all going on exactly as before.” No programmes have (yet) been cancelled. No personnel changes have been made. Indeed, one senior TfL person has just been appointed, of all things, Boris's environmental adviser.
Less than a year ago, as further leaked emails show, Mr Hendy was secretly plotting with Ken's chief of staff to “refute Boris's transport ideas”. Now, in a truly gymnastic feat of brown-nosing, he has apparently persuaded the new Mayor that his sole purpose in life is to implement those very same ideas.
It's surprising that someone as bright as Boris can fall for this obvious nonsense. What it probably means is not that TfL will end up working for Boris — but that Boris will end up working for TfL.
Link to:
Reader Views (8) Add your view | Show all
Here's a sample of the latest views published. You can click view all to read all views that readers have sent in.
How much do Deloitte make from TFL? Did they assist with the Oyster card that recently crashed and cost us a small fortune?
- Miss Snipe, London
Dear, dear are these the first signs that Andrew might be falling out of love with his creation, tut,tut!
Remember what happened to Dr Frankenstein.
- David, london UK
Have you ever ridden a bus in Delhi? Have you breathed in the smog in that city? What utter tosh.
I don't live in London, but every time I have been there, I have been pleasantly surprised by a well-organised, frequent, low-cost mass transport system. You perhaps forget what it is like to not live in the well-connected Capital city!
TfL is what the rest of the country's transport network needs! Not subsidised, wholly national, national rail!
- Liam Gooderhall, Hooton, United Kingdom
"
Monday, September 8, 2008
Sunday, September 7, 2008
KHOODEELAAR Constitutional law action against “Crossrail hole plot ...’ CAMPAIGN, UPDATE of evidence [101]
This page of AADHIKARonline was last edited at 0445 GMT 0545 Hrs UK Time London Monday 8 September 2008.
KHOODEELAAR Constitutional law action against “Crossrail hole plot ...’ CAMPAIGN, UPDATE of evidence [101]. Those who are actually familiar with the UK domestic court system! will know of the huge amount of work that has to be done before any actual applications are made to a court... The same applies to KHOODEELAAR! legal and constitutional law action programme... For 4 years and 8 months, we have waited for them to give us answers to the questions that we have put to them.... We have tried again by updating them on those [as visitor to our web web sites, blogs and publicity pages on the internet will be aware]. When we did get a single communication claiming that they have answered, we looked through our files. The result is that the following reply has now been sent to the Tower Hamlets Council this morning [Monday 8 september 2008]: “We have not found answers to our questions in anything that you or any other person representing the tower hamlets borough council has sent to us in the 4 years and 8 months of our campaign so far. This is the reason for the delay in our sending you this reply. We have looked for and thought about the possibility of finding answers to our questions. Answers from TOWER HAMLETS COUNCIL. But in vain. The council has never answered our questions.This will now be of course sought - the answers that is - via the courts, as you are aware. I say this in view of your legal section decision to ask you to await our proposed court actions. The court actions have been delayed so far partly in order to give yourselves the one conclusive opportunity to give us the answers to all the outstanding questions. It is clear that
‘the Council’ prefers to have the matter dealt with by the court system. I point out that this will be one component of our claim, that the Council is causing court actions to be taken rather than give us the answers.The costs implications of this behaviour will be stressed in all relevant representation and actions by Khoodeelaar! Yours sincerely
Muhammad Haque Organiser KHOODEELAAR!
0420 Hrs GMT London Monday 8 September 2008
KHOODEELAAR Constitutional law action against “Crossrail hole plot ...’ CAMPAIGN, UPDATE of evidence [101]. Those who are actually familiar with the UK domestic court system! will know of the huge amount of work that has to be done before any actual applications are made to a court... The same applies to KHOODEELAAR! legal and constitutional law action programme... For 4 years and 8 months, we have waited for them to give us answers to the questions that we have put to them.... We have tried again by updating them on those [as visitor to our web web sites, blogs and publicity pages on the internet will be aware]. When we did get a single communication claiming that they have answered, we looked through our files. The result is that the following reply has now been sent to the Tower Hamlets Council this morning [Monday 8 september 2008]: “We have not found answers to our questions in anything that you or any other person representing the tower hamlets borough council has sent to us in the 4 years and 8 months of our campaign so far. This is the reason for the delay in our sending you this reply. We have looked for and thought about the possibility of finding answers to our questions. Answers from TOWER HAMLETS COUNCIL. But in vain. The council has never answered our questions.This will now be of course sought - the answers that is - via the courts, as you are aware. I say this in view of your legal section decision to ask you to await our proposed court actions. The court actions have been delayed so far partly in order to give yourselves the one conclusive opportunity to give us the answers to all the outstanding questions. It is clear that
‘the Council’ prefers to have the matter dealt with by the court system. I point out that this will be one component of our claim, that the Council is causing court actions to be taken rather than give us the answers.The costs implications of this behaviour will be stressed in all relevant representation and actions by Khoodeelaar! Yours sincerely
Muhammad Haque Organiser KHOODEELAAR!
0420 Hrs GMT London Monday 8 September 2008
Saturday, September 6, 2008
KHOODEELAAR! exposing ANOTHER central lie used by Crossrail hole agenda peddlers on the East End of London [97]
This page was last edited at
0430 GMT 0530 Hrs UK Time London Sunday 7 September 2008
KHOODEELAAR! TOLD YOU SO! The lie that Big Business agenda is based on and the lie that the peddlers of the Crossrail hole plot have been using in all their promotions and lobbying, is that the scam will 'also' 'bring benefits' 'to local people'. They have been perpetrating the lie that JOBS will be available to the people, fo the East End. Ordinary people in the ordinary community. We have said all along that the lie is untenable. That the lie is deliberate and is part of the fraud to get the crassly conceived scam through... That it cannot be allowed to go unchallenged. That their lie is part and parcel of their strategy that was used inside the two Houses of UK Parliament by BIg Business that covered up the truth and lied.........That the lie is exposed in the following jobs and recruitment propaganda piece carried ion one of the construction conglomerates web sites: NOTE the words they use for prospective jobseekers on Crossrail, the 2012 Olympics Games hosting sites and structures ...."particularly those who are qualified and are working towards Chartered status." [To be continued]
0430 GMT 0530 Hrs UK Time London Sunday 7 September 2008
KHOODEELAAR! TOLD YOU SO! The lie that Big Business agenda is based on and the lie that the peddlers of the Crossrail hole plot have been using in all their promotions and lobbying, is that the scam will 'also' 'bring benefits' 'to local people'. They have been perpetrating the lie that JOBS will be available to the people, fo the East End. Ordinary people in the ordinary community. We have said all along that the lie is untenable. That the lie is deliberate and is part of the fraud to get the crassly conceived scam through... That it cannot be allowed to go unchallenged. That their lie is part and parcel of their strategy that was used inside the two Houses of UK Parliament by BIg Business that covered up the truth and lied.........That the lie is exposed in the following jobs and recruitment propaganda piece carried ion one of the construction conglomerates web sites: NOTE the words they use for prospective jobseekers on Crossrail, the 2012 Olympics Games hosting sites and structures ...."particularly those who are qualified and are working towards Chartered status." [To be continued]
Friday, September 5, 2008
KHOODEELAAR! No to "pro-imperialist, pro-colonialist Big Business media myths against the people targeted by poverty-creating Crossrail hole plotters”
This page was last edited at 2205 GMT London Friday 5 september 2008
For a second time in the past few months, the Rupert Murdoch-owned ed London times newspaper has SUPPRESSED comments critical of the City of London interests as contained in the pieces published with the by-line of Martin Waller, who ‘normally’ presents himself as the ‘City Diarist’..
There are comments accompanying his latest piece concerned. But not those that tell the truth about the role being played by the Big Business backing media.
We shall go into the details of the role being played by the likes of Martin Waller in boosting the image of the Big Business ...
We shall also look at someone else given a job on the same Murdoch owned Times. That someone else is passable as an almost credible member of what could be called the calling of 'journalism !!!!'. She is Camilla Cavendish. She boasts of having lived - and ‘worked’ - in Bangladesh. And comes across as if she knows Tower Hamlets as a 'resident'.
Here is here latest piece that refers to both [Bangladesh and Tower Hamlets]:
"
From The Times mSeptember 4, 2008 Britain 2028: we need ten new cities, please
Our approach to immigration is unsustainable. We must either cap numbers or introduce a tough guest worker scheme
Camilla Cavendish
I came back from holiday in the vast calm of Burgundy to find that the UK will have the largest population in Europe by 2060, on half the land area of France. Sharif told me this while he was doing my hair. He thinks it would be “crazy, darlink, so sweaty, and just not fair”. But he also worries that his Polish builders will go home and leave him with Albanians who are less cute and who have apparently acquired the English tea-break mentality, but not much English.
We have become completely contradictory about migration. We are alarmed by the numbers of people reaching these shores, yet suddenly afraid that they might pack up and leave. Can we afford to lose energetic people who have helped to drive the economy? Can we afford to keep them? How many is too many?
First, the stats. If there is any certainty at all in population projections, it is that a 50-year EU projection is bound to be wrong. So I dug out the Government's 20-year forecast. It's stunning. The Office for National Statistics expects Britain's population to rise by ten million, seven million from immigration. That would require the building of ten big cities. Yet the Government has no plan for housing the numbers it is apparently planning to accept, nor for providing the services they would need. Already, half the babies in London's maternity wards have foreign-born mothers. That doesn't make any baby worth any less. But those of us who have given birth in the capital in recent years know that midwives are dangerously variable in quality and that hospitals are so overstretched that women are being turned away from hospital to give birth on the kitchen floor.
Will a recession empty the wards and leave our dynamic economy bereft of talent? Probably not. The significance of the Polish exodus has been overblown because of the assumption that Eastern Europeans are a majority of those coming here. Yet they have never been. Even in 2004, when the Government opened Britain's doors to the new EU accession countries, of the 940,000 people who came here legally only a third were from the EU. Over the past 15 years more than 90 per cent of legal arrivals have been from non-EU countries.
This gives the lie to the pretence that the Government cannot restrict the numbers entering Britain. The fourfold rise in official immigration in the past decade can be explained largely by deliberate policy. In 1997 the abolition of the Primary Purpose Rule removed the restriction that required applicants to show that they were not just marrying to enter the UK. In 1998 the abolition of embarkation controls ended any effective record of who came in and out. In 2002 the number of work permits was doubled. The Government now claims to have created an “Australian-style points system” to keep out the low-skilled, but it is Australia-lite. Australia sets an annual limit on numbers, then takes those with the most points. The British have no such limit.
Much of our contradictory approach is because while we appreciate the undoubted skills of foreign doctors and builders, we are less enthusiastic about handing out lifetime entitlements to unprecedented numbers of people merely on the basis that they are here, legitimately or not. It is clear that immigration has brought much-needed wealth, ideas and energy into the British economy. It is less clear, over time, how to balance economic benefits against the value of state ones.
The answer may be to decouple the two. There is no cast-iron reason, for example, why immigrants who have been here for five years should automatically acquire a permanent right to remain. Nor is it axiomatic that they should have the same entitlements as British citizens. Many countries with open borders refuse to give immigrants equal rights. When I lived in Bangladesh I met many families whose income came from guest worker relatives in Kuwait and Jordan. During the Gulf War, the sheer number of disgruntled returnees astonished me. For me, the term “guest worker” was flush with imperial exploitation. But these people were just grateful that they could earn. They did not expect additional benefits. They were keen to get back, even to Singapore - which expels guest workers if they become pregnant.
The guest worker concept is unpalatable in many ways. But it may be fairer than shutting people out altogether. The US economist Lant Pritchett has called guest work a liberal solution to the problem of the “irresistible forces of global migration” coming up against the West's “immovable ideas” of nationhood.
I raise the issue because it seems clear to me that our current approach is both undemocratic and unsustainable. When the official figures point exponentially upward - and the official figures are a woeful underestimate because they fail to capture the illegals - we are in danger of stretching the social contract to breaking point. People are getting angry, and they will get angrier if the recessionary tide leaves ever more foreigners claiming benefits here.
The alternative to a guest worker system, which feels more British, would be to offer every legitimate worker equal rights - to benefits, at least, if not to permanent residency. But in this overcrowded island, this will only work if there is some kind of cap on numbers. Come to Tower Hamlets and see people living eight to a room. Spot the secret doors cut into buildings which have been divided up into grim tenements, like the old Jewish ghettos. Many of these people earn below the minimum wage and some are trafficked. It is inhuman. I believe we face a choice: between open borders and guest workers, or closed borders and fewer workers. To continue to pretend that we do not, as recession looms, may prove politically dangerous. The immigration issue is now spatial, not racial. And the fairest solutions may be those that look the least liberal.
"
For a second time in the past few months, the Rupert Murdoch-owned ed London times newspaper has SUPPRESSED comments critical of the City of London interests as contained in the pieces published with the by-line of Martin Waller, who ‘normally’ presents himself as the ‘City Diarist’..
There are comments accompanying his latest piece concerned. But not those that tell the truth about the role being played by the Big Business backing media.
We shall go into the details of the role being played by the likes of Martin Waller in boosting the image of the Big Business ...
We shall also look at someone else given a job on the same Murdoch owned Times. That someone else is passable as an almost credible member of what could be called the calling of 'journalism !!!!'. She is Camilla Cavendish. She boasts of having lived - and ‘worked’ - in Bangladesh. And comes across as if she knows Tower Hamlets as a 'resident'.
Here is here latest piece that refers to both [Bangladesh and Tower Hamlets]:
"
From The Times mSeptember 4, 2008 Britain 2028: we need ten new cities, please
Our approach to immigration is unsustainable. We must either cap numbers or introduce a tough guest worker scheme
Camilla Cavendish
I came back from holiday in the vast calm of Burgundy to find that the UK will have the largest population in Europe by 2060, on half the land area of France. Sharif told me this while he was doing my hair. He thinks it would be “crazy, darlink, so sweaty, and just not fair”. But he also worries that his Polish builders will go home and leave him with Albanians who are less cute and who have apparently acquired the English tea-break mentality, but not much English.
We have become completely contradictory about migration. We are alarmed by the numbers of people reaching these shores, yet suddenly afraid that they might pack up and leave. Can we afford to lose energetic people who have helped to drive the economy? Can we afford to keep them? How many is too many?
First, the stats. If there is any certainty at all in population projections, it is that a 50-year EU projection is bound to be wrong. So I dug out the Government's 20-year forecast. It's stunning. The Office for National Statistics expects Britain's population to rise by ten million, seven million from immigration. That would require the building of ten big cities. Yet the Government has no plan for housing the numbers it is apparently planning to accept, nor for providing the services they would need. Already, half the babies in London's maternity wards have foreign-born mothers. That doesn't make any baby worth any less. But those of us who have given birth in the capital in recent years know that midwives are dangerously variable in quality and that hospitals are so overstretched that women are being turned away from hospital to give birth on the kitchen floor.
Will a recession empty the wards and leave our dynamic economy bereft of talent? Probably not. The significance of the Polish exodus has been overblown because of the assumption that Eastern Europeans are a majority of those coming here. Yet they have never been. Even in 2004, when the Government opened Britain's doors to the new EU accession countries, of the 940,000 people who came here legally only a third were from the EU. Over the past 15 years more than 90 per cent of legal arrivals have been from non-EU countries.
This gives the lie to the pretence that the Government cannot restrict the numbers entering Britain. The fourfold rise in official immigration in the past decade can be explained largely by deliberate policy. In 1997 the abolition of the Primary Purpose Rule removed the restriction that required applicants to show that they were not just marrying to enter the UK. In 1998 the abolition of embarkation controls ended any effective record of who came in and out. In 2002 the number of work permits was doubled. The Government now claims to have created an “Australian-style points system” to keep out the low-skilled, but it is Australia-lite. Australia sets an annual limit on numbers, then takes those with the most points. The British have no such limit.
Much of our contradictory approach is because while we appreciate the undoubted skills of foreign doctors and builders, we are less enthusiastic about handing out lifetime entitlements to unprecedented numbers of people merely on the basis that they are here, legitimately or not. It is clear that immigration has brought much-needed wealth, ideas and energy into the British economy. It is less clear, over time, how to balance economic benefits against the value of state ones.
The answer may be to decouple the two. There is no cast-iron reason, for example, why immigrants who have been here for five years should automatically acquire a permanent right to remain. Nor is it axiomatic that they should have the same entitlements as British citizens. Many countries with open borders refuse to give immigrants equal rights. When I lived in Bangladesh I met many families whose income came from guest worker relatives in Kuwait and Jordan. During the Gulf War, the sheer number of disgruntled returnees astonished me. For me, the term “guest worker” was flush with imperial exploitation. But these people were just grateful that they could earn. They did not expect additional benefits. They were keen to get back, even to Singapore - which expels guest workers if they become pregnant.
The guest worker concept is unpalatable in many ways. But it may be fairer than shutting people out altogether. The US economist Lant Pritchett has called guest work a liberal solution to the problem of the “irresistible forces of global migration” coming up against the West's “immovable ideas” of nationhood.
I raise the issue because it seems clear to me that our current approach is both undemocratic and unsustainable. When the official figures point exponentially upward - and the official figures are a woeful underestimate because they fail to capture the illegals - we are in danger of stretching the social contract to breaking point. People are getting angry, and they will get angrier if the recessionary tide leaves ever more foreigners claiming benefits here.
The alternative to a guest worker system, which feels more British, would be to offer every legitimate worker equal rights - to benefits, at least, if not to permanent residency. But in this overcrowded island, this will only work if there is some kind of cap on numbers. Come to Tower Hamlets and see people living eight to a room. Spot the secret doors cut into buildings which have been divided up into grim tenements, like the old Jewish ghettos. Many of these people earn below the minimum wage and some are trafficked. It is inhuman. I believe we face a choice: between open borders and guest workers, or closed borders and fewer workers. To continue to pretend that we do not, as recession looms, may prove politically dangerous. The immigration issue is now spatial, not racial. And the fairest solutions may be those that look the least liberal.
"
KHOODEELAAR! No to "uneconomic ... Crossrail scam" CAMPAIGN analyis IS vindicated, AGAIN [93]
This page was last edited at 2120 GMT 2220 Hrs UK Time London Friday 5 September 2008:
KHOODEELAAR! No to "uneconomic, untested, unwanted, publicly-costly, publicly-paid-for Big Business-greed-filling Crossrail scam" CAMPAIGn is VINDICATED, again... In the 'reasons' stated in a RAILNEWS web site item about a [admittedly smaller] 'Crossrail' scam in Scotland being unsupported, the KHOODEELAAR! principled analysis as we had been making against the London CROPSSRAIL, has become relevant.....
[To be continued]
"
http://www.railnews.co.uk/news/general/2008/09/05-aberdeen-crossrail.html
North-east Crossrail scheme ‘doomed’
Posted: 5th September 2008 | No Comments
First Minister Alex Salmond
PLANS to set up a £200million commuter transport system in the north-east appeared doomed last night after experts said the business case was weak and questioned potential demand.
First Minister Alex Salmond revealed that Transport Scotland had concerns about the Crossrail scheme and transport partnership Nestrans has been advised to focus on improving the existing rail infrastructure.
Opposition MSPs say the news reinforced their fears for the project, which would involve two new stations in Aberdeen serving the north and south and a service between Inverurie, Aberdeen and Stonehaven every 15 minutes.
Nestrans chairman Kevin Stewart said he believed the project, part of a £1billion transport strategy for the north-east, was feasible but admitted Transport Scotland was not convinced.
North East Conservative MSP Nanette Milne said last night it appeared from the tone of the letter she had received from Mr Salmond that the SNP Government was poised to perform a “spectacular U-turn”.
She said this would be a great pity because the project was “vital” in tackling traffic congestion in Aberdeen, particularly at the Haudagain roundabout.
Mr Salmond wrote: “Transport Scotland has had discussions with Nestrans regarding the emerging conclusions from their draft report relating to the Aberdeen Crossrail proposal.
“The initial findings from this study suggested that the business case for this project might be weak.
“It was therefore jointly agreed that Nestrans should focus on identifying the further passenger benefits that can be gained from the existing rail infrastructure.”
Mrs Milne added: “Local people increasingly feel that the SNP are making a spectacular U-turn which will see these plans and the Crossrail project shelved.
“It is now crucial that the first minister and the SNP government clear up the confusion they have caused surrounding the Aberdeen Crossrail proposal.”
Pivotal to the Crossrail scheme is the reopening of Laurencekirk station, but this has been has been delayed until early next year. Plans are also afoot to reopen Kintore station and Nestrans is funding a feasibility study.
Mr Stewart said: “Transport Scotland do not see there being the demand for the project but it may see it increasing when the timetabling of the trains between Stonehaven and Inverurie changes in December.
“We will judge what happens when Laurencekirk opens in the new year.”
A spokesman for Mr Salmond said: “Obviously we want proposals to be as strong as possible to maximise their chances of success when they advance beyond a draft and come forward in final form for consideration by ministers.
Return to top
"
KHOODEELAAR! No to "uneconomic, untested, unwanted, publicly-costly, publicly-paid-for Big Business-greed-filling Crossrail scam" CAMPAIGn is VINDICATED, again... In the 'reasons' stated in a RAILNEWS web site item about a [admittedly smaller] 'Crossrail' scam in Scotland being unsupported, the KHOODEELAAR! principled analysis as we had been making against the London CROPSSRAIL, has become relevant.....
[To be continued]
"
http://www.railnews.co.uk/news/general/2008/09/05-aberdeen-crossrail.html
North-east Crossrail scheme ‘doomed’
Posted: 5th September 2008 | No Comments
First Minister Alex Salmond
PLANS to set up a £200million commuter transport system in the north-east appeared doomed last night after experts said the business case was weak and questioned potential demand.
First Minister Alex Salmond revealed that Transport Scotland had concerns about the Crossrail scheme and transport partnership Nestrans has been advised to focus on improving the existing rail infrastructure.
Opposition MSPs say the news reinforced their fears for the project, which would involve two new stations in Aberdeen serving the north and south and a service between Inverurie, Aberdeen and Stonehaven every 15 minutes.
Nestrans chairman Kevin Stewart said he believed the project, part of a £1billion transport strategy for the north-east, was feasible but admitted Transport Scotland was not convinced.
North East Conservative MSP Nanette Milne said last night it appeared from the tone of the letter she had received from Mr Salmond that the SNP Government was poised to perform a “spectacular U-turn”.
She said this would be a great pity because the project was “vital” in tackling traffic congestion in Aberdeen, particularly at the Haudagain roundabout.
Mr Salmond wrote: “Transport Scotland has had discussions with Nestrans regarding the emerging conclusions from their draft report relating to the Aberdeen Crossrail proposal.
“The initial findings from this study suggested that the business case for this project might be weak.
“It was therefore jointly agreed that Nestrans should focus on identifying the further passenger benefits that can be gained from the existing rail infrastructure.”
Mrs Milne added: “Local people increasingly feel that the SNP are making a spectacular U-turn which will see these plans and the Crossrail project shelved.
“It is now crucial that the first minister and the SNP government clear up the confusion they have caused surrounding the Aberdeen Crossrail proposal.”
Pivotal to the Crossrail scheme is the reopening of Laurencekirk station, but this has been has been delayed until early next year. Plans are also afoot to reopen Kintore station and Nestrans is funding a feasibility study.
Mr Stewart said: “Transport Scotland do not see there being the demand for the project but it may see it increasing when the timetabling of the trains between Stonehaven and Inverurie changes in December.
“We will judge what happens when Laurencekirk opens in the new year.”
A spokesman for Mr Salmond said: “Obviously we want proposals to be as strong as possible to maximise their chances of success when they advance beyond a draft and come forward in final form for consideration by ministers.
Return to top
"
Thursday, September 4, 2008
KHOODEELAAR! No to the abuse of the office of London mayor... CAMPAIGN TOLD YOU SO! that Crossrail hole plot peddler Livingstone was a waster in post
This page was last edited at 1525 GMT in London on Thursday 4 September 2008
1525 GMT 1625 Hrs UK Time London Thursday 4 September 2008: KHOODEELAAR! TOLD YOU SO! NOT even BORIS JOHNSON had a clue, let alone ANY MORALITY or evidential or constitutional CLOUT to say what KHOODEELAAR! had said for years about Ken CROSSRAIL HOLE PLOT peddler Livingstone's abuse of the post he held in the name of the people of London..... That Livingstone was irresponsible with the finances and that he was callous with those..... Now, after 8 years of Livingstone's doing it.... the INCUMBENT in the same post says some of the things... and contained in the GLA news releases... and at the Boris Johnson News event staged at the xxxxty Hall London SE1 today [Thursday 4 September 2008]... Then Boris Johnson REVERTS to the same fabricating form as was typical of Livingstone himself... Boris Johnson makes claim to be delivering 'Crossrail' as if that phrase[ is somehow enough top lift the office of the mayor in the name of London to a level where it is seen as and is actually accountable to the people of London.. It is not... Boris Johnson is on notice from KHOODEELAAR! that he will have to answer for any MORE of the Crossrail hole agenda-peddling utterances that he may make in addition to those as had been made by Ken Livingstone himself... Boris Johnson must know, especially on a day when he is announcing cuts to the budget and rises in the fares for bus and tube in London that Crassly is NOT affordable, that Crassly is not the answer to the needs of London... Boris Johnson must not become another Ken Livingstone when it comes to contradicting and giving false statements....KHOODEELAAR! will publish later this evening [Thursday 4 September 2008] the next part of our analysis of today's utterances by the CRASSly-'advised' and lobbyed peddler of CRASSRAIL hole, that Boris Johnson, .
[To be continued]
1525 GMT 1625 Hrs UK Time London Thursday 4 September 2008: KHOODEELAAR! TOLD YOU SO! NOT even BORIS JOHNSON had a clue, let alone ANY MORALITY or evidential or constitutional CLOUT to say what KHOODEELAAR! had said for years about Ken CROSSRAIL HOLE PLOT peddler Livingstone's abuse of the post he held in the name of the people of London..... That Livingstone was irresponsible with the finances and that he was callous with those..... Now, after 8 years of Livingstone's doing it.... the INCUMBENT in the same post says some of the things... and contained in the GLA news releases... and at the Boris Johnson News event staged at the xxxxty Hall London SE1 today [Thursday 4 September 2008]... Then Boris Johnson REVERTS to the same fabricating form as was typical of Livingstone himself... Boris Johnson makes claim to be delivering 'Crossrail' as if that phrase[ is somehow enough top lift the office of the mayor in the name of London to a level where it is seen as and is actually accountable to the people of London.. It is not... Boris Johnson is on notice from KHOODEELAAR! that he will have to answer for any MORE of the Crossrail hole agenda-peddling utterances that he may make in addition to those as had been made by Ken Livingstone himself... Boris Johnson must know, especially on a day when he is announcing cuts to the budget and rises in the fares for bus and tube in London that Crassly is NOT affordable, that Crassly is not the answer to the needs of London... Boris Johnson must not become another Ken Livingstone when it comes to contradicting and giving false statements....KHOODEELAAR! will publish later this evening [Thursday 4 September 2008] the next part of our analysis of today's utterances by the CRASSly-'advised' and lobbyed peddler of CRASSRAIL hole, that Boris Johnson, .
[To be continued]
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
KHOODEELAAR! TOLD YOU SO! that there was no economic case for Crossrail!
0415 GMT 0515 Hrs UK Time
London Thursday 4 September 2008
KHOODEELAAR! TOLD YOU SO! that there was no economic case for Crossrail! That the EXISTING infrastructure which related to overwhelming numbers of peoples’ transport needs, needed to be improved and maintained to a high standard with the money that was wrongly being allocated to Big busies under the cover of Crossrail.... Now, a SIMILAR argument in principle, has been recognised up in Scotland... THERE, the much smaller ‘Crossrail’, a word that construction conglomerates have been spreading and pushing as a ‘cult’ word, has been found to be NOT in demand.................KHOODEELAAR! says to Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling: Again, listen to reason and you shall be spared undue woes ....SCRAP London Big Business CRASSrail....Address real transport matters with the money...[To be continued]
London Thursday 4 September 2008
KHOODEELAAR! TOLD YOU SO! that there was no economic case for Crossrail! That the EXISTING infrastructure which related to overwhelming numbers of peoples’ transport needs, needed to be improved and maintained to a high standard with the money that was wrongly being allocated to Big busies under the cover of Crossrail.... Now, a SIMILAR argument in principle, has been recognised up in Scotland... THERE, the much smaller ‘Crossrail’, a word that construction conglomerates have been spreading and pushing as a ‘cult’ word, has been found to be NOT in demand.................KHOODEELAAR! says to Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling: Again, listen to reason and you shall be spared undue woes ....SCRAP London Big Business CRASSrail....Address real transport matters with the money...[To be continued]
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