Round the houses again

Right, here's the latest warning about closures on Crawley Road. Watch out,  it will close the College Road/Crawley Road and Bourne End Road/Crawley Road junctions. It looks like Newport Pagnell will not be accessible (unless you go via Moulsoe and the A509 or the A422

Road:                          Crawley Road, Cranfield

Application from:     Amey for CBC – Silv Chelaru – 0300 3008049

Reason:                      Resurfacing

Length affected:     From Cranfield FC to county boundary (Closure includes road to Bourne End and Cranfield University – both junctions will be closed at the same time)

    

      

Date: The closures are expected to be in operation on Saturday 30^th November & Saturday 7^th December 2013 between the hours of 0800hrs and 1800hrs.    

 

Bandit country

The blog takes note of conditions and developments beyond the bounds of Cranfield and one intrepid rambler reports the following baffling obstruction in darkest North Crawley.

I'd never seen one like this before, with a formidable sliding bar lock but also in an apparently locked state with a red-painted  padlock held in an armoured receptacle . How could this be on a public footpath? This is of course, just over the border in Bandit Country. MKC's Rights of Way web pages are not a patch on what we have in CBC. Not even a contact email address could be found nor a reporting form. Instead I contacted the MK branch of the Ramblers who were incredibly helpful & seem to be able to exert pressure on the MKC RoW team under some sort of "special relationship".

To cut a long story short, turns out that this is actually a disabled access gate, would you believe? - the red padlock is a "RADAR" lock for which disabled users can get a common key. This begs the question, how is anyone in a wheelchair or a mobility scooter ever going to get to this location & in any case how would it be safe for them to do so? To get to this spot from the Cranfield direction would have required something with tracks or a 4-wheel drive! When you encounter kissing gates like this, you can be sure that livestock is on the other side & it was in this case, an additional hazard for a potential disabled "rambler". If we had looked more closely (your attention is unduly drawn by the bar lock & red padlock), we would have found that there was a little catch on the other side, which would have released the gate & allowed us to proceed onwards instead of back-tracking!

Eventually MKC RoW admitted that the real reason it was here (and at some other locations in their area), was because it is easier to put one of these mobility-designed gates in locations with a large gap because they are wider & of course fill the gap. That way, they don't have to mess around with adjusting fencing.  They had a job-lot in stock but they aren't cheap - you are looking at a few hundred smackers + installation.  The gate comes with the RADAR lock as standard but there is nothing to inform the uninitiated of it's significance, which they are looking into.

"Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." Particularly if you want to get to North Crawley before sundown (or closing time)...

bus changes in Cranfield, Milton Keynes and North Crawley

Interesting meeting last night with  NCrawley parish councillors, transport officers from MK and CBC, the  local MK cllr  and Delise Ball, myself and Alan Morris from Cranfield Parish Council

The main headlines are

• Paul Dodge (CBC transport officer) says Grant Palmer announced out of the blue they wd run a commercial service while CBC was in discussion to put out a tender for a supported service to MK. GP originally planned a service that wd only run every 70 to 75 minutes but agreed to an hourly service. Later buses only run with CBC support. 
• Andrew Coleman (MK transport officer) said the borough cannot support services running outside its area and CBC was not willing/able to share costs. So the Arriva MK services stopped and the connection  between NC and Cranfield. 
• The university is still considering replacing its home grown shuttle service with a subsidy to a public service that would meet its students' needs and offer general public use. It is the only player with regards to resources.
• Cranfield Pcllrs asked for assurances that we would be consulted in any spec the university drew up regarding a new service. 
• All public representatives protested at not being alerted to the changes in advance.
• There is discouraging news that many transport operators are not actually interested in running subsidised evening services and quote silly prices. 
• There was also a hint that in some areas (no names mentioned) developers are challenging S106 housing agreements that make provision for public transport. Something we need to keep an eye on.