§ MR. MACKARNESSI beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he can state what is the increase in the number of trains calculated to pass through Newbury during the month of July, 1907, as compared with July, 1897; what addition, if any, has been made to the permanent staff of the station to meet the increased traffic; and whether any fresh accommodation has been provided for passengers at all.
The following Questions also appeared on the Paper in the name of the same hon. Member—
To ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that it is admitted by the Great Western Railway Company that their station at Newbury is fifty-nine years old and has never been enlarged, in spite of the enormously increased traffic caused by the construction of two new connecting 486 lines and the diversion through Newbury of part of the main line traffic; that this traffic has been still further added to during the last two years by the holding of four annual race meetings near Newbury of two days each; that, though the platform is in places only six feet wide, daily expresses run through the station at over fifty miles an hour to the danger of the passengers and traffic; and whether he has been informed that the remonstrances of the Newbury Corporation have been, for eight years, ignored by the company; and whether he will send down an inspector to inquire into the fitness of the station and its arrangements for the existing volume of traffic.
To ask the President of the Board of Trade whether the land alleged by the Great Western Railway Company to be necessary before they can build a new station at Newbury has been offered to the company by the trustees of the Newbury Municipal Consolidated Charities for £1,600, and that the company have declined to pay the price; and whether he will inquire why, if the company are not satisfied with the price asked for by the trustees, they do not use the powers placed at their disposal by the law for compulsorily obtaining the land?
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEThe railway company, with whom I have again communicated in this matter, state that they are unable to add anything material to the information already given which has been communicated to my hon. friend. Under the circumstances I have decided to prosecute an inquiry into the matter.