The Golcar Circular

Car park uproar, bridge repair controversies, reinstating a rail service and Mongolian restaurants are just some of the things that fill a councillor’s day!

Paul Salveson is a councillor on Kirklees Council and a visiting professor at the University of Huddersfield in the department of transport and logistics. He played a leading role in the formation of the Association of Community Rail Partnerships (ACoRP), has worked for Northern Rail as head of government and community strategies, and in 2008 was awarded an MBE for services to the rail industry.

Paul Salveson is a councillor on Kirklees Council and a visiting professor at the University of Huddersfield in the department of transport and logistics. He played a leading role in the formation of the Association of Community Rail Partnerships (ACoRP), has worked for Northern Rail as head of government and community strategies, and in 2008 was awarded an MBE for services to the rail industry.

Change is constant in politics and so too in journalism. After two years of writing my ‘Railway Doctor’ piece for LTT’s sister publication New Transit, I’ve hopped across to write a monthly ‘opinion piece’ for LTT. The focus is on transport seen through the eyes of an elected councillor. And I’m still the new boy, having been elected to Kirklees Council in May this year, to represent the Golcar ward for Labour. So where is this strange, slightly Norse-sounding, community of Golcar? Those of you familiar with the busy Trans-Pennine rail route between Leeds and Manchester will pass through it, on your way between Huddersfield and Slaithwaite, or ‘Slawit’ if you prefer the local vernacular. The ward formerly had no less than two stations, Longwood and Milnsbridge, and Golcar itself. Both closed in the late 1960s following the Beeching report, which I’ll return to.

‘Golcar ward’ covers Golcar itself, a pretty village perched atop a hill, with weavers’ cottages descending down the slopes towards the Colne Valley. It also contains Milnsbridge, in the valley bottom, and Longwood, up another valley that feeds into the River Colne. The ward is socially mixed; there are some serious pockets of deprivation, mostly on two council estates. It has a small Asian population, mostly in Milnsbridge and the area known as Paddock. Paddock is the location of the excellent Royds Hall School, which Harold Wilson attended as a lad, and did very well. He lived on the opposite side of the valley in Cowlersley, close by Milnsbridge. By all accounts he was a bit of a train spotter and enjoyed watching the heavy freights steaming up the valley, taking coal from the Yorkshire pits into Lancashire.

Kirklees is a metropolitan council with ‘three councillor’ wards, which are elected for four-year terms, one returning each year apart from the ‘fourth year’ when there are no elections (which happens to be next year). Currently there are two Labour and one Liberal Democrat councillors, following Labour wins in 2011 and this year. Previously, the ward had all-Lib Dem representation for many years. To make matters even more colourful, we have a Conservative MP – Jason McCartney, who happens to be vice-chair of the Common’s ‘Rail in the North’ cross-party group.

The area has a complex geography which isn’t easy to serve by bus. The ‘Golcar Circular’, which this column is named after, is the 301/2 bus that serves most parts of the ward, but there are some straggling routes going up into more remote hillside communities dating back to hand-loom weaving days in the eighteenth century. FirstGroup operates the 301/2 but we also have a good local operator, Stott’s Coaches, which as well as the coaching business provides some local tendered services on more marginal routes – including that which goes past my house, which you’ll hear more of in subsequent pieces.

Since being elected, transport has figured very highly in my ‘casework’. There was uproar when the council attempted to place time restrictions on the village car park in Golcar; we persuaded the officers to drop the idea. A much more difficult ‘highways’ issue has been the reconstruction of ‘The Bridge over the River Colne’ at Milnsbridge. This is a strategic link between the two sides of the valley and the structure needs upgrading to take heavier lorries. The work is scheduled to last 14 weeks and traffic is being managed by a one-way system, which involves a long detour for traffic that would normally head south over the river. It has been controversial, to put it mildly. The highway engineers reckon that two-way working controlled by lights would lead to serious safety risks with traffic backing up onto the busy Manchester Road. Yet the downside is frustrated (and idiotic) drivers wilfully taking a chance and driving ‘wrong way’ over the bridge. Meanwhile, businesses are up in arms over the effect of the works on their businesses and other communities are complaining about the extra traffic as a result of traffic seeking alternative routes to avoid Milnsbridge. Verily, you need the wisdom of Solomon to sort this one out.

A more positive issue taking up my time is the campaign to get a new station to serve Golcar and Milnsbridge. Most of the local stations between Huddersfield and Marsden closed in 1969, with just Marsden surviving with a very limited service. Thank you Dr Beeching. Yet through the efforts of West Yorkshire PTE (‘Metro’) Slaithwaite re-opened in 1993 and has been a great success. Last year it handled around 200,000 passengers and usage continues to grow. We’re pretty sure that people in Golcar and Milnsbridge would use the train if they had a station. A potential site has been identified close to the old goods yard, which provides better access to both Milnsbridge and Golcar and is on a busy bus route – the ‘Golcar Circular’ as a matter of fact. The campaign group is called GLAM TRaC – Golcar, Longwood and Milnsbridge Transport Campaign. Its chair and vice-chair are train drivers with Northern Rail, so they know a bit about railways, and buses too for that matter. Its second meeting, held in the unlikely surroundings of the local Mongolian restaurant, attracted a good crowd and it has now got a team of enthusiastic supporters, with cross-party political backing in the ward and from the MP.

The area needs a station. There has been significant housing development in the area and there is planning approval for more. Many of the former mills – magnificent stone-built structures that will last for centuries, unlike their Lancashire brick-built cousins – have been converted into apartments mainly occupied by young professionals. They have jobs in Leeds, Manchester and the surrounding area. They are natural ‘train’ people. A station for Golcar and Milnsbridge would do every bit as well as its Slaithwaite neighbour, possibly even better – and be a godsend for local businesses.

Yet the proposed station has not been universally welcomed by the railway industry, revealing some of the problems facing local rail expansion. The route is already busy and future plans for ‘The Northern Hub’ will see six fast or semi-fast trains an hour plus freight. It remains unclear how the local stations will be served. The current suggestion – not popular with the locals – is for a ‘skip stop’ pattern of semi-fast services. Adding yet another stop into the existing pattern causes further operational problems. However, on the plus side, the route is being electrified and re-signalled so there will be more capacity. My own view is that we don’t need those six fast trains – four or perhaps five would be enough, with two stopping trains an hour (currently there’s only one, apart from at peak times). Yet ‘realpolitik’ is such that arguing to reduce the service pattern even to five would probably not succeed. So if the DfT, Network Rail and ‘the city regions’ want their six fast trains, OK. We want two stopping trains. And a station at Golcar/Milnsbridge. Any major route upgrade should allow for additional capacity, rather than an upgrade that only allows you to run at full capacity from day one.

So a long road lies ahead. We’re optimistic that we will get the station included in an ‘aspirational’ list of station re-openings in Metro’s RailPlan 7, to be published this autumn. It will probably have the caveat that it is not funded, but the DfT’s newly-announced pot of money for station re-openings offers opportunities. It’s the politics that will win it, or kill it.