The next Open Meeting of the Coastliners Rail User Group will take place on Thursday 16 May 2019 at 7.15pm in the Reading Room of The Athenaeum Club, Church Street, Hartlepool when we will have have two guest speakers: Cllr Michael Mordey, Deputy Leader, Sunderland City Council (and former Transport Portfolio holder), and Mr Patrick Rice, Chairman, Tyne Valley Rail User Group.
Coastliners’ Officers have already met on more than one occasion with Mr Steve Payne, Strategic Transport Manager of the Tees Valley Combined Authority (TVCA), and Coastliners are fully in favour of the rail service improvements which TVCA seeks. During our meeting of 16 May we hope to have similar discussions with the above representatives from Sunderland and the eastern section of the Tyne Valley line. Many of our local trains run through Sunderland and via the eastern part of the Tyne Valley line to Hexham and several proceed to Carlisle.
Arising from this meeting and those with the TVCA, we hope to decide on what Coastliners can say to the Williams Review by way of putting the case for Coast Line improvements on behalf of what is a large percentage of the region’s population. Please come along and help shape our representations to the Williams Review. Perhaps an appropriate title for our meeting, and looking ahead from it, would be Where do we go from here?