IT'S all go, down at Kemble, isn't it? Hurrah, more parking! Whoopee, more, faster trains! But, don't hold your breath.... not an extra railway wheel will turn until 2018, not an extra car wheel will stop until, well sometime...

Didn't anybody think, three years ago, when the re-doubling of the Kemble-Swindon line became imminent, that perhaps when it was finished, that they could run more, faster trains up to Cheltenham? That, perhaps, this might make the stations along the line more popular and perhaps they might start to plan for those extra trains and that extra parking?

But, of course, there ain't no one there to do that planning, just a swarm of individual companies trying to make a fast buck before their franchise finishes. And we wait another three years for improved services because of the stupidity that corporations are more efficient than nationalised industries, thereby proving the contrary....

A principle of the Green Party is to fight climate change by making it easy for people to reduce their carbon emissions. One way of doing this is to make public transport as easy to use as possible. Another way is reduce the cost so that it's cheaper to use.

Neither of these is going to happen while the rail system is run for the shareholders – mostly outside Britain – of 'competing' franchises and while transport systems are compartmentalised, this is a 'bus service' and that is a 'train service'.

So everyone drives separately over to Kemble because no one has the wit to organise a better way. Is it really too complicated to time the arrival of the meagre bus services to meet the trains from Swindon?

Could we not have some kind of joint economical taxi service to meet these trains, using that new-fangled interweb thing? Or do you all like having your cars mouldering in a field at Kemble?

R W IRVING

Green Party

Albion Street

Cirencester