The following article was written by Longstone village resident Georgina Blair after the meetings:

Thank you to everybody who came to the Village Hall last month to find out more about the proposal to reopen the railway line between Matlock and Buxton, along the line of the current Monsal Trail. It was great to have so much interest both at the Bookswap Café on Wednesday and in the session on Saturday. It was clear better transport connections to the village would be of great benefit for some people, allowing them more contact with friends and relations when driving is not an option. One comment was ‘it’s a lovely village but it’s difficult to live in if you don’t have a car’. It was also evident that the existing Monsal Trail is a valued community asset, with many people taking advantage of its level surface and traffic-free environment for walks or cycles with friends or dogs. Other discussion points included the potential impact on house prices of the reinstatement of a train service, the existing shortage of affordable housing in the Longstones, the need for better buses, the cost of travelling on trains, the level of traffic and associated nuisance parking in the Longstones and the Peak Park generally, and the environmental impact of tourism in the Peak District.

Underlying much of this is the fact that we don’t currently have much choice in the Longstones, and in the Peak District as a whole, about how we travel. It’s hard to avoid using a car in the Peak District, and this means that people who can’t drive or can’t afford to drive, usually the young, the very elderly and the less affluent, are disadvantaged. People who have cars don’t have the choice of leaving them behind if they want to, whether for environmental, lack of parking or avoiding-drink driving reasons. According to the Peak District National Park (PDNP) website there are 38,000 residents in the PDNP and 13.25 million visitors a year (2018 figure). Most of these people probably travel round in cars (per the 2021 census 83% of households in the Derbyshire Dales had access to at least one car). If everybody (resident and visitor) had a choice between viable public transport and private cars then some people would leave their cars at home, reducing their impact on the environment and making roads better for us to walk, cycle, ride and even drive along.

The current status of the proposal by MEMRAP (the Manchester and East Midlands Rail Action Partnership) to reopen the Peaks and Dales railway as a combined passenger and freight line includes the installation of an ‘alternative Monsal Trail’ which would be in place before work began to reinstate the railway on the existing track bed. To progress, the campaign needs to secure funding for a study from the Department for Transport. However, Derbyshire County Council’s current administration is unsupportive and this lowers the level of Department for Transport interest. If you want to help bring a train service back to Great Longstone then the best thing you can do is write to your elected representatives and tell them. You can email our MP, Sarah Dines, through www.writetothem.com. Contact details for our District and County Councillors can be found on the Derbyshire Dales District Council and Derbyshire County Council websites, although on both you will have to wade through pages on recycling and bin collections first. You can also support the campaign by joining as a member (www.memrap.org ).

 As we discussed on the day however, just bringing back a train service won’t solve our transport woes. We also need cheap fares for all public transport, reliable and frequent bus services that connect with rail services, and good information about the whereabouts of both buses and trains. Fortunately there are also campaigns to help with these (see www.bettertransport.org.uk and www.betterbusescampaign.uk ). There will be more musings on buses in next month’s UTE, but for now, please pick your campaign and write to Sarah Dines. We need to fight for our public transport! (Article from Under the Edge village magazine https://irp.cdn-website.com/d4ee26de/files/uploaded/UTE%20November%202023.pdf )