Bedford Mayor Branston deserves praise

Not being local to Bedford, I've never really noticed the town's elected Mayor, Frank Branston, before.  Or at least, not beyond the background noise of local politics.

Today I learned he has a blog, and he wrote yesterday:  'First stage of canal gets go-ahead'.

That any executive politician actually has a blog is a cause of satisfaction on Granny Buttons.  That this one's an elected mayor - and in active favour of a new canal being built - is a cause of celebration.

Frank Branston is a proponent of the proposed Bedford - Milton Keynes Waterway.  In his blog post he writes of a clever bit of politicking that could see the first 500 yard stretch of the new canal built (for free) in a year or so.

The Bedford - Milton Keynes canal took a big step forward at Wednesday night’s meeting of Bedford borough council. Members voted for a proposal which could see the first cut built one year from now.

Balfour Beatty, the company dualling the A421 to junction 13, will need clay soil to build the embankments alongside the new road. The easiest and cheapest way would be to dig what is known as a ‘borrow pit’ in the council-owned Berry Wood, Wootton, which is near the line of the road. This would leave a hole in the ground which would soon become a lake. On the table were four alternatives as to how this might be paid for:

Balfour Beatty could pay £100,000 cash for the soil and do minimal remedial work, or it could build some infrastructure which could lead to the lake becoming a leisure amenity and harden up the access which its lorries would use to make a road.

Or - Option 4 - in return for the soil it could cut the first length of the canal, up to 500 yards. The canal scheme envisages the canal being built in stages to match development so this would fit neatly but would the council wear it?

In short, yes, they voted for Option 4.

Getting it done will require the Bedford-Milton Keynes waterway group to get planning permission and technical details approved by September 30 next year.

By Christmas 2009 the first length of the first new canal to be built in Britain in 200 years could be cut.

Bravo for Frank Branston.  What a great bit of political manoeuvring!  I've now added 'Frank Branston canal' to my search alerts to see what else he says.

Here's something else that's interesting:  This news has come out directly from his blog to mine, bypassing the conventional media.

And yet, according to the Wikipedia entry for Frank Branston, he used to be the owner of several local newspapers in the area, before selling them when he became the Mayor in 2002. 

This shows how rapidly local media is changing.  Ten years ago, I'd have heard of this from the national papers, who'd have picked it up from Frank Branston's own newspapers.  Today, Branston brings it out himself. 

On the internet, everything is local, everything is miscellaneous.

Comments

[Halfie]

And BBC Online (for Beds, Bucks and Herts) has used the story.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/beds/bucks/herts/7662012.stm

Thanks again!

[Halfie]

And now I've passed this on to my colleagues at BBC East (bypassing the usual local paper stage!). Thanks Andrew.