Last updated at 13:45, Thursday, 28 June 2012

PERHAPS the power of the Evening Mail goes farther than even we could imagine.

Tim Farron

In my last column I wrote about how angry I was with Mike Penning, the Transport Minister, over the abandonment of the plans by the Highways Agency (which he is responsible for) for a roundabout on the A590 at Greenodd.

This, combined with his decision to cancel a planned visit to look at the road and talk to local residents and councillors about their needs, left me feeling that he really did not care much for the safety of road users in our part of the world. However I was wrong, as you may have read already in the Evening Mail, when we turned up for the 30-minute meeting with him, we had been given to make up for his failure to travel, he told us that he was actually “minded” to proceed with the scheme and was approving the expenditure of £500,000 to have plans drawn up.

Let us pass over how it can cost that much to get some plans drawn up, the fact is that the scheme is proceeding. I cannot believe that having spent as much as half a million pounds on the project it would be abandoned.

Mind you stranger things have happened with government decisions but I will be working hard to ensure that it does happen in this case. I won’t go as far as to say I apologise to Mr Penning (he may be reading this after all) but I was extremely pleased with his change of heart.

Another minister I was rather pleased to see have a change of heart was the Chancellor of the Exchequer with his decision to not increase fuel duty in August.

Clearly, “not increasing” is not the same as reducing, something that I am continuing to press him to do.

I want Cumbria to be included in the government’s experiment in reducing fuel duty in rural areas to see what effect it has on the local economy (something I would expect to be rather obvious but I suppose that they need to follow their processes before making a major commitment like this).

I want to see Cumbria enjoying the same reduced petrol and diesel costs currently being experienced by the residents of the Scilly Isles and some remote parts of Scotland where duty is 5p a litre lower than the rest of the country.

A recent report from the Office of Fair Trading highlighted how the costs of goods and services was higher in rural areas than in towns, a reduction on fuel duty would go a long way to addressing this. In the meantime we can at least enjoy the fact that fuel duty is not going to rise again this year.

Finally, continuing the transport theme, we have launched a campaign to protect the through service to Manchester Airport on the Barrow train line. Please do add your name to the list of supporters by contacting me at tim@timfarron.co.uk.

First published at 13:33, Thursday, 28 June 2012
Published by http://www.nwemail.co.uk