Battle for the Bridge

The battle for the station bridge continues this week with a Residents against Station Closure meeting at Victoria Centre, Stafford Road on Tuesday at 7pm. There are two good letters on the issue in this weeks Telegraph, the first from Valerie Bayliss points out that East Midland Trains are facing both ways as they have supported an application to restore the listed restaurant room on platform 1.The application states “the pedestrian link through the station is central to the city regeneration strategy as it provides a direct route for future occupants of the Park Hill redevelopment scheme to access the Golden Route into the city centre.” Recent passenger counts show an average of over 100,000 passengers (sic] passing through the station each week. Valerie says that this application has in effect been endorsed by East Midlands Trains as occupiers of the station – clearly the restoration could not happen without their co-operation. The second letter from RASC stalwart Viv Ratcliffe returns to the issue of democracy and asks who has the right to make the decision on the bridge. If EMT get away with there plans, going against the wishes of all the councillors in Sheffield from all 3 parties (Lib Dem, Lab and Green) and all the MP’s, it really will show how little power politicians now have as so much of our infrastructure has been sold off.

As EMT now push forward their plans to shut the bridge I suspect we will be organising further protests.The will of the people must prevail!