There wouldn't be enough Ha ha's on the screen for me to register my derision....

Barry has now responded and has changed tack. He is suggested TARMACING over the 2.2 miles of railway line, sending buses over the M5 bridge and up the Portway. And where pray, can we fit bus shelters in the Avon Gorge without undoing all the ecological work already done ?

Barry Cash has just posted on nextdoor to say he found the Reform's party political broadcast this week was frightening. I replied to say that his plan to place rubber mats through the Avon Gorge to run buses on , was FAR more frightening.....

It was changed from March/April to July 2025 overnight.

Anyone know why the Full Business case for the Portishead line which was due to be signed off March/April, has been put back to
july 2025... as reported by the Portishead railway group website ?

Worth pointing out that you can reduce the price on the falcon still further by using a concessionary bus pass to reduce the advertised price by half viz £4.05. I was paying £3 one way until the last price rise, you get dropped at the airport bus station and it will pick you up /drop you off at Anchor Road as well as Bond Street.

I hope you paid a visit to one of the smallest and quirkiest museums on the planet in Sudbrook yesterday...almost impossible to miss and an absolute gem to boot....

Or Nailsea and Blackwell as a certain Michael Portaloo kept calling it throughout the programme in the first series of Great British Railways journeys some 20 years or so ago...
Had he bought his Bradshaws guide at a certain well known bookseller in Oxford ??

These are not exactly new...about 30 years ago when easyjet and Ryanair were not around,Transun,an Oxford company ran 'Just for the day!' trips from Bristol Airport. Costing about £250, you got the first and last flights there and back, a hot meal both ways, airport transfers and various options at the destination including guided tours and entrance fees. I remember doing Vienna Christmas markets twice, Seville, Krakow,Prague, Paris, Berlin, Reykjavik twice and Amsterdam. They were generally very well organised, full aircraft and at the time seemed to be excellent value for money.
Transun are still in business and now seem to have cornered the market in Lapland day trips at about five times more  than I paid 30 years ago!

I hoipe Mr Crash lies down ...on a rubber mat obviously.... in front of the first train out of Portishead ..so that it is the end of his pedantic pointless prattling about Portishead. That bird has flown..it is a dead parrot and I for one will be glad when he gets the message and shuts up shop about his pet scheme. What Portishead needs is not more buses , especially as the new all electric Yutongs are coming on stream next month. It will make Barrys buses look like the dinosaurs,if not the dodo.

I too have been given the run around by GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) Cussed services. I applied for delay repay when The Bristolian out of Paddington was cancelled at six o clock one evening. Getting the split tickets off my phone on to the Pc was a logistical nightmare. When I  was asked for the same information a third time, I sent the reply in Times New Roman font size 72 in BOLD to show how annoyed I was. That got an immediate apology and  an up scale but no resolution yet!

Update: Glad to say resolved in my favour,,,all £6.72 of it. There are times when its not the money that's the important thing, it's the principle carrying things through to a conclusion.

[quoteClose Encounters of the Third Kid][/quote]


Did the first  two stay further back ?!!!

Mr Cash has never obviously travelled on the Translohr rubber tyred system of Clermont Ferrand. Not for the faint hearted or those of tender derrieres. I think that letter represents the last gasps of a dying enterprise.

From the Portishead railway group


Dear Member,
We weren't expecting any news about funding until March, but late this afternoon we received the amazing news that full funding has now been obtained and construction will start this summer.

After almost 25 years of campaigning, this sudden good news feels almost hard to believe, but it fits with the many comments and observations that we've picked up over the past few months. After all the work that has already been done, construction of the line really is happening!

You can find the full press release from Dan Norris, the Mayor of the West of England, here:
https://www.westofengland-ca.gov.uk/news/full-steam-ahead-for-bristol-portishead-line/

There's a lot more detail to come and we'll update you on how the full funding has been sourced when we have that information. However, it seems that the full business case will now be passed in March, with construction starting in the summer.

The information in our last email is relevant to all this, so here's a reminder of the links to the North Somerset Council meeting last month. You can find all the papers here under item 8:
https://n-somerset.moderngov.co.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=169&MId=1159&Ver=4
along with the latest report to Council:
https://n-somerset.moderngov.co.uk/documents/s6797/08%20MetroWest%20Phase%201%20Report%20to%20the%20Council%2014th%20January%2025%20-%20Final.pdf
 
Regards,
Peter
 
Peter Maliphant
Membership Secretary
Portishead Railway Group

If anyone can track down the letter from Lord Peter Hendy to Dan Norris, it would be useful to see the exact wording of it, so that the government cannot weasel their way out of it yet again!