Barely a week ago this was what the Conservatives (and other political parties) said about public transport when I posted this summary from the BBC News website:
Today BBC News is running a story headlined 'Conservatives pledge £4.2bn for trains, buses and trams'.
Er, not until 2022! The report reads
The Conservatives have promised £4.2bn of new spending on local train, bus and tram services if they win the 12 December general election. The party said the cash, which would become available from 2022, would help fund transport projects outside London.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said it would transform services "in towns and cities across the country".
The Conservatives are banking on the fact that come 2022 this belated £4.2bn public transport pledge will have long been forgotten by the muppets who voted for them.
This is the political party with the slogan 'Let's get Brexit done'. A great many people believe if the Conservatives win we will leave the EU on 31 January 2020. NO WE WON'T! We'll be lucky to leave by the end of 2020.
Present-day Conservatives have no interest in public transport other than what profits it can make for their big business/corporate backers. Once it was very different. They created many of the municipal bus and tram systems in England, Scotland and Wales in the late-19th/early-20th centuries before the Labour Party existed. This is something you can read about in an earlier blog posted by me, headed: Take the slow bus no more dated 14 August 2019.
The Conservatives used to believe in and understand why public utilities exist to serve all us. Not any more. This makes me sad. They would be a better, and more acceptable, party if they could recapture some of the historic decency they once had.
After nothing for over three years I am returning to History By Bus with a monthly post and a makeover, beginning with the latter, as you can see in the new heading.
The focus of this blog will be History by buses which serve the Greater Nottingham area. Any wider ambitions have been ditched. Health problems and other priorities are the reason for this decision.
So why come back to it now? Well, anyone visiting my BeestonWeek blog will see that buses and heritage still figure in what I do, including maps. I have also continued to produce and amend my 'History by 35' leaflet which continues to be popular at what local history events I attend.
I am presently working with St Martin's Church in Bilborough, Nottingham, on a reprise of my 35 bus day out (date to be confirmed) and producing a new version of the 35 leaflet for the occasion.
Over the coming months I intend to look at selected individual bus routes.
I have also created a Nottingham City Centre heritage and cityscape map which offers the viewer a different perspective of what to see and do in the city. This is a work in progress (as maps always are) and can be seen under Pages in the column to the right of this text.
I am working on a blue plaque version of the City Centre map as well.
Robert Howard
A Trent-Barton bus on the edge of Nottingham going about its business, carrying folk between Nottingham and Cotmanhay via the Ilkeston Road, Radford, Wollaton, Trowell and Ilkeston. Nothing glamourous, just an ordinary bus, but not quite. It is working one of Nottingham 'Heritage Bus Routes'.
Of course, you can argue that every bus route qualifies for the title 'Heritage Bus Route', but I have start somewhere, so I have compiled an initial list of places and routes, which I will add to and amend over time.
The first list of some eighty places, plus their bus routes, is from memory. I am sure that there are others, so if you would like anywhere, or a bus route, added please contact me.
The Two provides two useful links with the Erewash Canal, which runs from Langley Mill to the River Trent, about seventeen miles in total. One at Trowell and the other at Cotmanhay (see my Parkviews blog and type 'Erewash Canal' into the search box.
The two also takes you into Ilkeston Town Centre and very close to Erewash Museum, one of my favourite museums. A real gem by any measure and its free to visit (unlike Nottingham Castle Museum!).
Then there's the two wonderful nature reserves (Harrison's Plantation and Martin's Pond) on the north side of Russell Drive and Wollaton Road in Wollaton, within yards of The Two. On the south side you are within a few hundred yards of Wollaton Park, with its Hall and the Yard Gallery, plus Nottingham Industrial Museum.
In Nottingham itself, there are tens of places to visit and things to do, many for free and Trent Barton's 'The Two' bus will get you to all of them (within ten minutes walk at most).
The Two is a good example of a 'History Bus', but I would argue all bus routes are journeys into history, so the next time you go on a bus, switch off your mobile 'phone and look out of the windows instead and be amazed.
History by Bus has to start somewhere, hence the lists in the narrow column to the right, arranged by county. In the new year, I plan to turn this blog into a website. In the meantime, I hope you find it of interest.
Robert Howard.
