Liberal Democrats in York Welcome transport plans

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Wed 4th Jun 2008

The national network has suffered from years of under-investment

TRAVEL and transport will improve in York if new Liberal Democrat transport policies are put into operation, claim local members of the party.

The policies were launched on 3rd June by Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg. The proposals include improving bus services by putting them under the control of local councils where bus companies have failed to provide improvements themselves; improving local rail services; introducing strong environmental criteria for new roads and building a high speed rail network to cut journey times for longer distance travel.

"There are radical policies which will help address some of the transport problems in York" said Madeleine Kirk, Parliamentary Spokesperson for York Outer.

"Local Liberal Democrats identified over 12 years ago the strength of local support to re-open local railway stations in communities such as Haxby and Strensall and significant improvements to our local railway infrastructure could be achieved under the proposals.

"Transport is now high on people's lists of concerns. Despite lots of talk by Labour, public transport is expensive and plagued by problems of decades of failure to invest in it by both Labour and Conservative governments.

"With the cost of driving shooting up, bus and rail services in York Outer would benefit from a much needed boost. Our proposals will help to create a modern local transport system fit for the decades to come, rather than for decades ago.

"Giving local people the control over their bus services would mark a radical shift away from the situation recently experienced in York where the dominant operator decided to cut services without any regard to local need."

"The policy proposals will be debated at our conference in September and before then, members in York will be discussing them at our regular meetings. We are looking forward to a good debate."