Alfreton Station East Midlands Railway meeting press release
At its meeting on January 28th 2020, Alfreton Town Councillors met with representatives from East Midlands Railways (EMR) as part of their ongoing campaign to protect direct services from Alfreton to London and provide long overdue step free access at the station.
In respect to the December 2020 proposal to abolish direct services to the capital, the meeting heard how the timing of the franchise award had compressed the preparation of the consultation process and EMR acknowledged that this process could have been much better. The meeting also heard how operational needs arising from fleet changes and reductions in high speed trains had forced the proposed changes, which were as a result of the recent franchise award.
The meeting received a letter from the Secretary of State for Transport noting that timetable proposals were a matter for EMR, although this was contradicted at the meeting where a number of potential suggestions from members to retain the services to London were dismissed due to timetable requirements set by the Minister’s Department. In addition to raising serious concerns around inadequate consultation process, members raised issues around economic and environmental impacts, the challenges faced in changing trains at Nottingham, premium fares via Chesterfield and anticipated loss of evening services from Nottingham.
There was some positive news in respect to the late evening services from Nottingham, where EMR committed to replacing the removed London services with local services, details which were not in the consultation document, or seemingly on offer, as recently as November.
Councillor Scott Walker Leader of the Council drew the debate to a close by summarising the discussions and commented that in his near twenty years’ service on the Council, that he could not recall a matter in which: MP’s, the County, Borough and Town and Parish Councils were all agreed on. He urged EMR to find a way to retain the London services and recognise not only the views on the civic leaders, but the near 4000 people who had signed both electronic and paper petitions.
After concluding discussions around the timetable changes, attention moved the long-promised access improvements to platform 2. Members were reminded of an Equality Act action from a local family, which the Town Council helped instigate some years ago. They also heard of comments via social media of rail user’s concerns that the matter of access has taken too long to resolve.
The meeting heard that one of the rail organisations had denied any liability and how legal papers had gone astray. An EMR representative described parts of the process as appalling and that as far as EMR is concerned, he would ensure that the matter is put in the appropriate hands.
Councillor Scott Walker commented that ‘it’s simply not acceptable that a station with footfall in excess of three hundred thousand people per year does not have ‘Access for All ‘ to both platforms ‘
and members generally echoed their frustrations that the bridge access dilemma has gone on for far too long.
In proposing that the Town Council should continue its opposition to the timetable changes and continue to campaign to ensure ‘Access for All’ at the Station Councillor Scott Walker said that ‘this highlights the failings in the franchise system, where there is seemingly a merry-go-round between Ministers, Network Rail and Train Operators.’
Have your say…
East Midlands Railways plans to abolish services to London from the Town
DECEMBER 2020 TIMETABLE CONSULTATION
Major changes – have your say
By Friday 14th February 2020
Complete the consultation at:
eastmidlandsrailway.co.uk/December2020
https://www.facebook.com/alfretontc/
@ErewashRug
‘Will there still be direct services from Alfreton and Langley Mill to London St Pancras International during the week and at weekends?’
We have no plans to continue running direct services to London from those stations. We will, however, maintain a morning Sheffield to Nottingham service, which will call at these stations and allow connections from Nottingham to London St Pancras International
INTERESTED?
‘Friends of… Would you like to take part?
Alfreton Town Council has been approached by interested locals who would like to establish ‘friends of’ groups for the green spaces in Alfreton.
If you are interested join us for information gathering:
Monday 27th January 2020 – 6pm
Room 1, Alfreton House
Additional Information
EMAS has put out more ambulance resource than ever before. However, the combination of significant patient demand, pressure within local hospitals, and flooding across the East Midlands, have led to this level of escalation.
Declaring a critical incident includes a formal ask of partner services to take immediate action to help mitigate the risk for people in our communities, including:
Rapid release of ambulances from hospital departments. We appreciate this will be challenging for hospital colleagues however, we need to ensure we have emergency ambulances available to respond to people waiting in the community where life is at threat.
From the morning, local NHS Clinical Hubs to take Category 3 calls (see additional notes) from EMAS and provide support and/or a local alternative NHS pathway for these patient. This allows EMAS to focus on responding to Category 1 (life-threatening) and Category 2 (serious) calls.
All Category 3 calls (see additional information below) from NHS 111 receive a clinical validation from DHU Healthcare (the provider of 111 services) before it is sent for an ambulance.
Like many across the NHS, EMAS colleagues have been working tirelessly to respond to patient need. All internal actions and options to mitigate risk have been exhausted; therefore, a critical incident has been called to ensure mutual aid to support delivery of emergency and urgent patient care.
The public is asked to help by using NHS services wisely and by taking regular medication to manage long-term conditions. If your illness or injury is not immediately life-threatening, please seek alternative care via a pharmacy, urgent treatment centre, or general practitioner (including out of hours services) – visit the NHS website for services near you: https://www.nhs.uk/nhs-services/services-near-you/
Given the additional weather-related pressures being responded to by emergency services across the East Midlands, please act responsibly and do not take unnecessary risks.
Additional information:
Given the severity of the concern, senior leaders will continue to respond to the challenges faced and to ensure support for staff and volunteers at work. Therefore, media interviews will not be conducted tonight. Media requests should be sent via communications@emas.nhs.uk and will be responded to tomorrow.
This is the first time that East Midlands Ambulance Service has declared a Critical Incident.
In response to pressures in the NHS system and on ambulance services, on Tuesday 26 November 2024, EMAS escalated to Resource Escalation Action Plan (REAP) Level 4 – the highest level which indicates a potential for failures within the service. The service has remained at REAP Level 4 since then.
The Emergency Preparedness Resilience and Response framework describes a critical incident as: ‘any localised incident where the level of disruption results in the organisation temporarily or permanently losing its ability to deliver critical services, patients may have been harmed or the environment is not safe requiring special measures and support from other agencies, to restore normal functions.
NHS England Ambulance Response Programme states Category 3 calls are for urgent calls such as abdominal pains, and which will include patients to be treated in their own home. The aim is to respond to these patients at least nine out of 10 times within 120 minutes.