Planes, trains and automobiles with teeth

At first I turned over the page with barely more than a smile, but then I read a headline in the following week’s paper which made me go back and read it properly. Let me explain.

The original story continued thus: “Such has been the demand for forms for people to lodge their opposition to proposals contained in the Three Rivers Draft District Plan that the library has run out.

“A council representative said he had received more comments about the Croxley Rail Link scheme than any other proposal contained in the Draft District Plan.

“‘There has been a lot of concern expressed and this will be passed on to London Underground,’ he said.

“London Underground wants to build an elevated railway bridge over Watford Road at Croxley Green to link the Metropolitan and British Rail lines.

“If the new line is constructed, Watford Met station would close, said a council representative.”

One resident was so concerned he wrote to all his neighbours about the “intolerable disruption” the plan would bring to the area.

Anyway, a public meeting was arranged to discuss the plan and, with such widespread opposition, you’d think that would be that. Not a bit of it.

 “Council welcomes Croxley rail link” was the headline the following week.

“Support for the Croxley Rail Link from Watford Borough Council means the proposed elevated railway bridge over Watford Road is one step nearer to being built,” the article begins.

“After receiving ‘a big thumbs up’ from the Public Transport Sub-Committee on Monday, London Underground and British Rail will go ahead with further studies before starting the Parliamentary procedures necessary to begin building work.” Which suggests a “who cares what you think?” contempt for the public from the council.

The plan would have meant the demolition of the Two Bridges pub (now the Harvester Croxley Green) which, brewery giant Ind Coope vowed would never happen.

“It is not something we are just going to let happen while we watch on,” said the brewery’s representative Julie Bennett. “The Two Bridges is one of our more popular public houses in the area.”

Also set for demolition had the plan gone ahead was British Rail’s Croxley Green station. And how much would all this have cost?

“The link is estimated to cost £15 million,” the article said. “London Underground and British Rail will provide about £10 million from their own budgets and the rest will come from development of their landholdings.”

But the public were having none of it.

“People have lost count of the number of times this daft idea has been proposed, debated and rejected,” wrote one Croxley Green resident to the Watford Observer’s letters page. And though we may be getting closer to seeing the “daft idea” come to fruition now, a quarter of a century later, it’s an even more expensive project.

At current prices, the £15 million figure quoted in 1991 would these days equate to around £22.5 million – less than one-tenth of the £280 million or so they’re quoting today.

Another current transport story with resonances in the past concerns the county council’s recent decision to make cuts to our buses.

Looking back through the archive, I was surprised at how often the county council proposed slashing bus services as a way of saving money.

Back in 1976, South Hertfordshire Labour Party attacked Hertfordshire County Council in a “strongly-worded statement” for insisting on major cuts in local bus services, despite district council opposition.

As the Watford Observer of June 4, 1976, reported: “Speaking at a meeting of the party’s executive committee, county councillor John Cartledge explained the county planning officer had conducted a survey of ridership on several bus routes, as part of the council’s transport co-ordinating role.

“A report to the planning committee had suggested a number of timetable changes blandly described as ‘finetuning the services to meet local demand’ and ‘modifications to make them more attractive’.

“‘But in fact they were nothing of the kind,’ Mr Cartledge asserted. ‘The small print of an appendix revealed what was really intended – a massive reduction in services with no compensating improvements whatsoever.’

Seven years later, in 1983, they were at it again, cutting more than £60,000 in grants from the bus service which, the Watford Observer advised its readers helpfully: “will mean, generally, that commuters to and from the town centre will have to wait longer.” You don’t say!

As usual the county council claimed it was “forced” to make the decision because central government had cut its own grant, but it seemed far from upset about it.

So. Another of those “we’re doing it so get used to the idea” moments? Well, no, actually.

A week after announcing the cuts, the Watford Observer ran a story headed “Dramatic reprieve for bus services” in which the cuts were “dramatically shelved just hours before new timetables were due to be introduced.”

The Watford Observer of June 10, 1983, report continued: “The 11th hour decision by the traffic commissioners to halt the reduced services follows a forceful intervention by Labour-controlled Watford Borough Council,” so maybe politicians do listen after all – sometimes, at least.

After trains and buses, let’s go up in the air and a story concerning planes from the Watford Observer of June 3, 1988.

It reads: “Air traffic controllers averted an air disaster when two jets carrying 150 passengers passed within 12,000 feet of each other over Bovingdon on Sunday in the second near miss in the area in two months.

“Passengers aboard the Aer Lingus 737 and a Quantas Jumbo Jet were getting ready to land at Heathrow when radar operators at London Airport spotted the planes were too close for comfort.

“The Irish jet, on its way to London from Dublin with 76 people on board, was at 8,000 feet and the Australian airline’s 747 was about to drop to 8,000 feet in readiness for landing. There were 78 passengers on board making their way from Manchester to Heathrow before jetting on to Bahrain.

“‘At their closest point the aircraft were separated by about two nautical miles laterally. The standard radar separation is three nautical miles,’ said a spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority.

“The near miss will now be probed by a special team of CAA investigators to determine if lives were put at risk.

“Sunday’s close shave comes less than two months after a Cyprus Airways Airbus 310 and a Manx Airliners’ jet were involved in another near miss near Bovingdon.

“Then, the planes passed within half a mile of each other as they made their descent to Heathrow.

“Bovingdon is a key stacking area for planes taking their turns to land at Heath-row. ‘This is a cause for concern,’ said Watford council leader Fred Hodgson. ‘We have had a few reports now and it really is getting too many for comfort.’”

Finally back to the buses and a story from June 12, 1981, concerning Miss Mona Blackman or, as she was described in the headline, “the last of the clippies”.

The story marked the retirement of the aforementioned Miss Blackman who was due to hang up her ticket puncher after 30 years as a bus conductoress.

To mark the occasion, London Country put on a double decker “now used only for special excursions” for her last day, on the timetabled route between Hemel Hempstead and London. Instead of the usual “one man” buses which had come in by then, Miss Blackman was to have one last shift in her old job “a full, old-time shift, on the route through Watford, Stanmore, Queensbury, Kingsbury and Willesden to Victoria and back. Twice.”

Miss Blackman, of Park Road, Bushey, was said to have travelled some 750,000 miles in her career and was looking forward to the journey with relish. “She will don her old green uniform and beret, ring up the fares and astonish travellers now used to pay-as-you-enter coaches,” the article states.

“She was educated at a grammar school and is a spare time piano teacher attached to the London College of Music but she has always been dedicated to buses.

“A love of buses brought her to the Watford area in the first place. In 1942 she joined a private bus company, Southdown, in Sussex, but in 1949, men returning from war service wanted their jobs back, while the women had been employed on a temporary basis. She applied to four different bus companies but only London Transport seemed interested in conductoresses.

“So with her mother, Miss Blackman moved to this area.

“Her last journey as a conductoress was in March 1979, and since then she has spent most of her time in the office.

“She has been stopped on holiday on the Isle of Skye, in Switzerland and at the top of Durham Cathedral by passengers who have recognised her.

“Once, when she could see her career as a clippie was finishing, she tried her hand at bus driving. She failed by a narrow margin, but says: ‘I don’t think I’d have been happy as a driver. I didn’t take the test again. I knew I’d probably be in trouble with the police for stopping too long to collect the money. If I knew someone hadn’t paid, I’d want to go and get the fare.’

“Miss Blackman feels fit enough to go on working on the buses but she has reached compulsory retirement age.

“She intends staying in the area and continuing her interest in music and growing dahlias.”