Haltwhistle Walking Festival - April 25 - May 4th - come hiking in Northumberland this spring

Not too late to book and come along to the Norths top walking festival. Marjorie Baillie and all the volunteers lay on an amazing spectacle. Having walked through Northumberland on the all of the Hadrians Wall, The Isaacs Tea Trail, and the Pennine Way I can assure you there is no place better in the spring to come, pull on the hiking boots, and fill you lungs in Englands Montana. We have great B and Bs, pubs and tea shops to keep you going!   

Full details here: http://www.haltwhistlewalkingfestival.org/page19.html

I have my "ticket" to Gilsland Station - it will happen in time, and progress is being made!

I literally bumped into Julie Gibbon last week. She is a tireless campaigner for the Campaign to Open Gilsland Station, and I was able to get my "ticket" to Gilsland Station.
This project is slowly moving forward, with assistance from Northumberland County Council, as we endeavour to fundraise the £30,000 to get to GRIP Stage 3 of the Network Rail process for Station Rebuilds. There is a large amount of support locally, and in the 2 local authorities, and I cannot praise Julie and the team at COGS enough - they are doing a great job. This project will happen eventually. We are pictured in the Bardon Mill Village Store and Tea Room - my usual Bardon Mill lunch pit stop.

The Weekend Read: How do you recreate a "new" - old - station like Gilsland?

Dr. Beeching did for Gilsland Station 50 years ago, but the infrastructure remains and the Gilsland Railway Station Campaign was front page of the Hexham Courant last week, and rightly so. The full story is below but I am acutely aware that the local campaigners have gone to huge lengths to ensure the campaign has full support from both Rory Stewart MP and myself, the local councillors, Network Rail, The Tyne Valley Rail Users Group, the local community and businesses, and most importantly, the 2 County Councils. The strength of the case made is without question:
- it would revitalise a local community on a multitude of levels
- it would help Hadrians Wall and Pennine Way Tourism
- it would aid business investment in the cross border area
- and promote greater use of the trains, which is something we all want

The Campaign to Open Gilsland Station (COGS) was set up last year; I have held a series of meetings with many of the people involved not least Northern Rail, Rory Stewart MP and Network Rail; the COGS study, as helped by Councillor Alan Sharp, has revealed that the project could take five years, and cost up to £2.5million. This is no small sum, but it is genuinely doable. This is not a pipe dream project. It does tick the boxes, albeit we still have plenty to prove. If Gilsland station re-opens, it will be a remarkable victory for a community which lost the facility almost half a century ago.


But then we come to an understanding of what is called the GRIP Process. This may sound like some medieval judo hold and, to a degree, it is ... but I will try and explain it and outline the plan of action:
GRIP stands for the Governance for Railway Investment Projects: this is how such projects have been approached for a long time by Network Rail; it has 8 specific stages. Some might see these as bureacratic, but there is a degree of logic to the process, and as public money is going to be used in the process - then, in particular, in these tricky times- a need to ensure the money is well spent is required.


This from the Network Rail site:
"Governance for Railway Investment Projects (GRIP) describes how we manage and control projects that enhance or renew the national rail network.


GRIP divides a project into eight distinct stages.

1.Output definition
2.Feasibility
3.Option selection
4.Single option development
5.Detailed design
6.Construction test and commission
7.Scheme hand back
8.Project close out"

The Gilsland project is already well through the early stages, with the feasibility study yielding positive results, and the 2 Councils are looking at ways to take the project forward. The 5 year estimate is realistic - this is not going to happen overnight. But the planets are aligned and we have a formidable team of supporters. Money will always be the problem, but if we take this GRIP process stage by stage I genuinely believe this will happen.

Fuller details on the story here:
http://www.hexhamcourant.co.uk/news/gilsland-it-s-full-steam-ahead-for-2-5m-rail-dream-1.1131325

The Weekend Read: My campaign to help local Air Ambulance charities

People often forget that Air Ambulances are charities and not funded by the state. They are one of the wonders of British life.
For us in the North, The Great North Air Ambulance (GNAA) is incredibly important to Northumberland. It is the fourth emergency service.

The GNAA covers an area of 8,000 square miles. The helicopters can be anywhere in the region within fifteen minutes and this quick response provides those in need with specialist trauma doctors and paramedics. No medical response unit can match this reaction time on the ground and cover such a large area. Air Ambulances quite simply save lives. I have seen this as a jockey, as an MP and as a hiker - when I did the Pennine Way the service was called out several times - the picture is of me going over the high emptiness of High Cup Nick on the Cumbrian Border.

Yet, the GNAA is funded entirely through charitable donations. Each mission costs £2,500, because of fuel costs, medicine and other equipment. The Service responds to hundreds of call-outs a month and to satisfy this demand it requires about £4m a year in fundraising. This huge running cost is often a testing target to raiseand the GNAA is not alone. I am the chair of the All Party Group in parliamanet in support of Air Ambulances. There are many Air Ambulance charities across the UK, each one having to raise millions of pounds themselves so they can help reach patients quicker.

One clear way to ease this financial burden is to stop Air Ambulances paying VAT on fuel. Each year the GNAA, for example, pays £120,000 a year on fuel. Of this total, 20% is VAT. If stopped, the GNAA would save £24,000 – equivalent to 10 life saving missions.

Lifeboats do not pay VAT on fuel and, ever since becoming an MP, I have campaigned to fix this contradiction. Back in 2012 I led a debate where I argued that there was no difference between a lifeboat and a helicopter.
The transcript of the debate is here http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2012-07-11a.386.0&s=%28%28air+ambulance%29%29+speaker%3A24962#g386.1

After two years of hard campaigning by the GNAA and the Air Ambulance Association, The Chancellor, George Osborne in his recent Budget announced that Air Ambulances would no longerhave to pay VAT on their fuel. This was excellent news! It will have a huge impact upon the many Air Ambulance Charities across the country, but most of all here in the North East.

Two weeks ago, during Prime Minister’s Questions, I raised this issue and thanked the PM and the Chancellor for seeing the case for change and supporting the GNAA and others. 
“In 2012, 150,000 people petitioned this House to stop charitable air ambulances having to pay VAT on fuel. May I thank the Prime Minister for his actions in the 2014 Budget which will mean that more missions are flown and more lives are saved. Does he agree that this is possible only because we are using the LIBOR fines for good purposes and because we have a long-term economic plan?”

The Prime Minister replied, “My honourable. Friend is absolutely right. I pay tribute to him because he is the founder and chair of the all-party group on air ambulances. He has campaigned tirelessly on this issue, and he led a debate in the House in 2012. I am delighted about the result that was achieved in the Budget. As he says, it will lead to an expansion of the service. He is also right that you can only make these decisions if you look after the nation’s resources, control public spending, and get the deficit down—in short, if you have a long-term economic plan.”

But despite this excellent result the GNAA still needs support. There will always be a need for further fundraising and support from local volunteers. This VAT exemption does not mean the financial burden is lifted. More money is needed every year to help keep this life saving service in the air. What it does mean, however, is that money that would have otherwise been spent on fuel tax can now be used to buy more medicine and pay for more missions.

This is great news for the people of Hexham and Tynedale and I am delighted to have played my part in making this happen. I congratulate the GNAA and Air Ambulances across the UK and will continue to support them for as long as I am an MP. But as you consider your charitable donations this summer - please think of the GNAA. 

See God's own county with the Haltwhistle Walking Festival

Some places still available on the 27 - yes 27 - different guided walks across south west Northumberland. All details here.
http://www.haltwhistlewalkingfestival.org/spring2014.html

You will not regret this. Great views, nice people, well organised, and plenty of tea shops and pubs to reward yourself with at the end of the day. It all starts next week, but there is nothing to stop you pulling on your hiking boots and coming to see us this Easter.