Commission on Transport in the North

A Policy Commission from the Conservative Party

Visit www.transportinthenorth.com to have your say.

Meeting with Theresa Villiers 2 Dec 2008

On Tuesday December 2nd, Simon Moppett, Graham Nalty and Graham Fenton met with Shadow Transport Secretary Theresa Villiers MP at Portcullis House. They were joined by James Sinstadt of Conservative Futures. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss areas of common ground where the group could work successfully with the Shadow Transport team.

We asked about the surprise announcement at the Party Conference of the Party’s commitment to build a high speed rail route and to cancel the third runway at Heathrow. Theresa explained that the decision to make these announcements was taken very close to the conference date and that very few people had been told in advance.

We explained to Theresa our programme of events and visits and discussed various options for forthcoming conferences.

When we mentioned that we were looking for a venue for the group AGM on February 7th, Theresa suggested that we might consider holding the AGM at the House of Commons. We also mentioned that we were arranging workshops at the AGM on Road Pricing and Congestion Charging and that the presence of a member of the shadow transport team would be beneficial.

We mentioned the Railtex exhibition at Earls Court, the North West Conservative Conference at Bolton and the Spring Conference at Cheltenham. We were told that the Spring Conference would be centered on discussing the economy, so a transport fringe might not be appropriate.

We discussed the programme for the Party Conference 2009 and asked for the support of the shadow transport team at the CTG fringe events. Theresa explained that the party did not start to plan the conference until about March and that would be the right time to invite the shadow transport team to speak. We agreed to contact Theresa with our plans at around that time.

It was agreed that the role of CTG was best viewed as a conduit between grass roots conservative voters and the Shadow Transport Team.