Mayor Dave Hodgson has slammed today's Government announcement of regulated rail fare rises of up to 3.6% from January 2018 as adding 'insult to injury' for local rail users worried about the loss of peak-time intercity fast services from Bedford.

Commenting, Mayor Dave Hodgson said: "By announcing another big fares hike, the Government is adding insult to injury for local rail users. Not only is Bedford facing the prospect of a slower, poorer rail service with the proposed loss of peak-time intercity fast trains, but people are being forced to pay more and more in fares.'

Bedford town centre's footfall figures for the first half of 2017 show a striking increase of 5.3% agains the same period in 2016, with the town on course for a fourth successive year of footfall growth.

Year-on year footfall increased every single month in the first half of the year, suggesting strongly that Bedford and its traders contnue to buck the wider nationwide high street decline in the face of trends towards out-of-town and, in particular, online shopping.

Mayor Dave Hodgson has slammed the Government's plans to scrap peak time intercity train services at Bedford, and called for people to have their say on the 'shocking' proposals.

The Government's plans to use slower, commuter-style trains to and from Corby instead of stopping the fast trains at Bedford and elsewhere would strip Bedford of the 37-minute link to London St Pancras. They would also mean no more peak-time trains to anywhere north of Kettering, such as Leicester, Nottingham, Derby and Sheffield.

Mayor Dave Hodgson has described the recent news of the government's closure of the Employment Tribunal Court in Bedford as part of a 'a fully-fledged assault by the government on local services in Bedford Borough.'

Mayor Dave said: "First the Government announces the closure of our Magistrates' Court, now it's cutting access to justice locally even further with the closure of the Employment Tribunal Court. The fact that people are already being forced to travel to Suffolk or inside the M25 for their tribunal hearings is a disgrace. This will cause huge disruption and costs for individuals and organisations."

The Government has announced the cancellation of the project to electrify the full length of the Midland Mainline, despite huge disruption having been suffered by local communities in Bedford Borough already, with more to come.

Local communities on and in the vicinity of the Midland Mainline north of Bedford have had to put up with extraordinary noise and traffic disruption for a project to electrify the line through to Sheffield, meaning only cleaner, quieter, fully electric trains would run on the line. Now it has said there will be no further electrification north of Kettering.

With gas main replacement works by Cadent Gas causing the closure of Bedford High Street to traffic through the week until Friday 21st July, Mayor Dave Hodgson has issued a statement reminding people that the High Street is open to pedestrians and very much open for business.

The gas main replacement works by Cadent involve the full closure of the High Street from Monday 17^th July through to Friday 21^st. Single lane closures will follow during further works between July 31^st and August 18^th. With the High Street open to pedestrians throughout the closures, Mayor Dave Hodgson is issuing a rallying cry for people to visit and use its wide range of high quality traders.

Mayor Dave Hodgson's 2017 summer village tour across Bedford Borough is underway, following the first group of visits to rural communities last night.

Mayor Dave has held a village tour every summer since he was elected in October 2009, and this year's tour will see him holding walk-up street surgeries in 58 different villages across the Borough.

Mayor Dave Hodgson has called on the NHS Sustainability and Transformation Plan (STP) programme for Bedfordshire and Milton Keynes to scrap its idea of downgrading local hospitals, after its own report revealed overwhelming public, patient and NHS staff opposition.

In March, the STP published a 'discussion document' which featured 'ideas' including reducing A&E services in at least one of the three hospitals, ceasing consultant-led maternity care in at least one hospital and removing higher-risk births, and reducing paediatric care at two of the hospitals, with care for the most unwell children concentrated at one of the three sites.