Petition – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 30 June 1964.
Mr Charles Howell
, Birmingham, Perry Barr
12:00,
30 June 1964
With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and the leave of the House, I would like to present a petition signed by 6,000 of my constituents and the citizens of Birmingham conurbations.
As the House will know, Birmingham is very conscious of the accident rate; in fact, it introduced a system of dipped lighting with a view to reducing the holocaust on the roads.
As a result of the recent closures and the proposed closures of branch lines and railway stations, the signatories to this Petition feel that, if continued with, the proposal contained in the Beeching Plan will increase the traffic on the roads and thus increase the accidents and even the deaths on the roads.
The Petition, which I propose to read, is as follows:
To the Honourable the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled.
The Humble Petition of the Midlands Save the Railways Campaign, sponsored by the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen, the National Union of Railway-men and the Transport Salaried Staffs Asssociation, showeth:
That the application of the Beeching Report to railways is not in the best interest of the country's transport.
Wherefore your Petitioners pray that there be instituted an early, comprehensive national survey of all forms of transport, including all costs, to ensure that traffics use the most economic and efficient forms of transport in the national interest, that there be no further application of the Beeching Report, which deals harshly with the railways in isolation, until such appraisals of all forms of transport into national or regional public services.
And the Petition ends:
And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.
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