Hoping mayor keeps free travel promise
IN reference to Oliver Pridmore’s front page article and inside story (“Claire makes history,” Saturday May 4), I write to thank Claire for her support during our campaign to save free tram travel across the tram network late last year and spring this year.
On Thursday February 8, Claire attended one of the many County Hall lobbies we arranged to protest against the then proposal by Councillor Ben Bradley and Cabinet colleagues, to possibly scrap free tram travel [for concessionary pass holders].
Claire followed this up later in that month with an email thanking our campaign for the update once Councillor Bradley and his cabinet colleagues agreed to retain the benefit, with 92% of residents supporting the current arrangement.
I also attended the excellent mayoral Q&A hustings event organised by East Midlands Chamber at Strelley Hall, at which both Ben Bradley and Claire Ward committed to continuing with the free tram travel arrangements, if elected as Mayor in the new East Midlands Combined County Authority.
To be fair to Ben Bradley, he did engage with our campaign from the outset, replying on three separate occasions to our open letter.
I think our campaign was effectively the starting pistol around the debate on an integrated travel network for the new EMCCA, as our ideas were put forward (to Ben, Claire and other candidates) well before the many hustings which took place over spring 2024.
In fact, in our open letter we effectively proposed that the new region, with the additional transport funding available, had a ‘once in a lifetime opportunity’ to introduce free 24/7 travel across the entire regional authority for all concessionary pass holders.
This would make the new EMCCA the exemplar across England, improving even on the excellent offer currently in place across Greater Manchester with Andy Burnham as their very popular recently re-elected regional mayor.
Therefore, on the specific issue of an integrated local public transport network, we hope Claire sticks to her electoral pledges on this crucial infrastructural arrangement.
Des Conway Sherwood