Tyneside Tories to fight CTA plans
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'THE plan to create a Conurbation Trans port Authority for Tyneside will be fought at both local and national level, Tory transport spokesman Mr. Peter Walker warned last Friday.
After talks with Conservatives who snatched control of Newcastle at last month's elections, he said the plan would be opposed strongly by the City Council and by the Opposition in Parliament.
While they were not opposed to machinery being set up to co-ordinate bus and rail timetables to provide more efficient transport services, they were strongly against the Authority plan which would result in the nationalization of bus companies in the area.
He said that the groups which would be affected by the Tyneside plan were Newcastle Corporation Transport with assets of £3m, the private Northern General Transport group and United.
Councillor Arthur Grey, new Tory leader of the city council, said that much new thinking was going on about the corporation's transport undertaking and new experiments were being planned to try to improve services.
He said that there had been a "complete lack of imagination" in operating the undertaking in the past and now much less rigid thinking would be applied to services.
Transport chairman Councillor Neville Trotter is to invite city bus drivers to talks. He wants to hear their ideas about overcoming traffic problems in the city.