The figures quoted in today’s BBC story seem to bear out my claim with St Albans annual season tickets coming in at 31 pence per mile travelled.

Of course there are the oddities – the absurdly expensive Heathrow Express and the infamous tube journey from Covent Garden to Leicester Square which was always supposed to be more expensive per distance covered than Concorde.  My concern is for standard commuter journeys which people have to use every day.

As I told the BBC, we are paying Rolls Royce prices but not getting the Rolls Royce.   I welcome any thoughts on the appropriate car model which best describes the Thameslink experience!

PS I blogged before Christmas about my meeting with rail minister Norman Baker, where I put on the table a dossier compiled by two local commuters on their recent daily experiences of First Capital Connect.  Norman promised to pass it to Tim O’Toole, chief executive of First Group, the parent company of FCC.  This has resulted in a five page letter of explanation from Mr O’Toole which Norman Baker forwarded to me today.  When I have digested its contents, I will report on them here.

It has its own shop premises in Hatfield Road by the Methodist Church and has out-stations in London Colney and Harpenden.

Quite simply STADCU is a not-for-profit savings and loan institution run by local people (almost entirely volunteers) for local people.  It’s about keeping money circulating locally and local people helping each other.

Credit unions are familiar institutions in the USA and some European countries with people joining as a matter of course.  Here they are in their infancy.

STADCU has existed for just over ten years and has lent out more than one million pounds at low interest rates over that period.  The picture shows its shopfront dressed for Christmas.

St Albans District Credit Union is a fully-fledged financial institution.  It has a Consumer Credit Licence and is part of the Financial Services Compensation Scheme.  But its low cost base and ethical purpose mean it does not charge set-up or arrangement fees, has no early repayment penalties and gives free life insurance on loans and savings (subject to age).  Some of its volunteers, who include retired bank managers, are willing to visit people in their own homes at a mutually convenient time if they prefer.

All this for a really low and affordable interest rate.  By contrast, payday-loan borrowers can face interest rates of several hundred per cent.

Today’s reported research by R3, which is an organisation for “business recovery professionals”, reports money worries at the highest level it has ever recorded.  60% of their sample were worried about their level of debt, and 45% struggled to make their money last till payday.

Everybody has times when their outgoings exceed income – at Christmas or when there is an unexpected problem with the car for example.  A lot of people use their credit cards to tide them over but this can be expensive too.

Saving with and borrowing small amounts from the Credit Union can be a far better alternative.  It’s certainly not just for poor people.  But when I mention the Credit Union to my friends and acquaintances, I am struck by how little known it still is.  It needs the oxygen of publicity, now more than ever, both to attract new savers and borrowers and to get more volunteers too.

You can read more about it at www.stadcu.org

And although STADCU only covers people who live and work in Hertfordshire with a primary focus on St Albans District, there is an increasingly comprehensive network of credit unions across the country.  In current difficult economic circumstances, their time has surely come.

But we need more than the various parties sitting in trenches and lobbing legal mortar bombs at one another.

There are new arguments which deserve examination but they will only get credence if they can be tested and cross-examined.  This will only be possible if the Inquiry is re-opened.  It’s not a third Inquiry, it is simply a re-opening of the last one to allow the new material to be introduced.

It is clear from the submission from Helioslough and the comprehensive rebuttal of their arguments by St Albans District Council and to some extent by STRiFE that there is little agreement as to the importance or relevance of particular changes in circumstance since the Public Inquiry, or indeed of the effect of ongoing changes in planning policy.

For David and myself, we want an up-to-date picture of the impact of M25 widening on local traffic flows and an understanding of the implications of the recent joint decision of the two local authorities to the north of us to back a freight terminal at Sundon.  They want one, we don’t, it’s the same railway line, that must count for something in the brave new world of localism.

Submitting the various new circumstances to the glare of open inquiry would also minimise the chance of continued legal claims at the end of the process.

It may seem to prolong the agony to local residents.  There have been suggestions that some of the participants want to avoid further cost.  But the cost to our district of allowing the Helioslough scheme to proceed by default would be even greater.  I hope the Secretary of State is listening.

PS If you want to catch up on the history, see previous blog-postings at http://bit.ly/rJt6R0

Her grandmother had been made to chew every mouthful one hundred times “just as the Prime Minister does”.  This by itself did not dispose her to like him.  The family were great Liberal supporters – thus their enthusiastic endorsement of Gladstone’s chewing habits.

One day the Grand Old Man came to their house for lunch, in the midst of one of his epic campaigning tours.  The little girl was determined to check out the paragon and peeped through the crack of the dining room door as he ate his lunch.

Of course he was in a tearing hurry to get away to the next speaking engagement, so he gobbled his food down, and spilled crumbs over his shirtfront.  The disgusted girl decided all politicians were liars and hypocrites, and particularly Liberals.  Ho hum, another vote lost.

PS The picture shows me standing in front of Gladstone’s family home, Hawarden Castle, preparing to defend his reputation

SOSA is a charity in its own right, running weekly sessions in athletics, basketball, boccia, swimming, equestrian, and a multi-sport taster sessions. As the picture shows, I went to see one of the athletics sessions at Westminster Lodge.

But I could have gone to basketball at Loreto School, boccia at Nicholas Breakspear, equestrian at the Oaklands College Smallford campus, multi-sports at Harpenden Leisure Centre, or swimming at either Harpenden pool or Townsend School.

They’re also getting involved in a community allotment in the Mentmore Road allotments in Cottonmill.

So it’s entirely my own fault that I knew so little of their activities before one of the parents contacted me.  Frankly I had confused it with the better known and higher profile Paralympics movement for physically disabled people.

I was really impressed with the enthusiasm and commitment of SOSA’s volunteer coaches, the parents, and the very small professional staff.  The trouble is that their finances are on a knife-edge.  Their chief funding comes out of various “pots” in the county council budget.  So they are very vulnerable in the current public spending climate.  They’ve already taken a hit this year but have managed to continue by paring everything to the bone.  If there are more cuts next year, they would find it very difficult to continue without a fairy godmother.

It was clear to me how much pleasure the participants gained from the various activities.  It provides an invaluable outlet and confidence builder.  So congratulations to Deloittes in St Albans who provide help in both money and kind, including a lot of staff involvement, and the network of parents and friends who slog away at fund-raising.  And a plea to the county council to do its level best to protect this little corner of the Big Society.

If you want more information on the Special Olympics movement, you can find out more here.

PS I didn’t know what Boccia was either.  So this is what it says on the Boccia Federation website:  Boccia (pronounced ‘Bot-cha’) is a Paralympic sport introduced in 1984.  It has no Olympic counterpart.  Athletes throw, kick or use a ramp to propel a ball onto the court with the aim of getting closest to a ‘jack’ ball. It is designed specifically for athletes with a disability affecting locomotor functions.  It is played indoors on a court similar in size to a badminton court.

The aim of the game is to get closer to the jack than your opponent.  The jack ball is white and is thrown first.  One side has six red balls and the other has six blue balls.  The balls are leather containing plastic granules so they don’t bounce but will still roll.  The side whose ball is not closest to the jack throws until they get a ball closest or until they run out of balls.  Once all the balls have been thrown one side receives points for every ball they have closer to the jack than their opponents closest ball.

So I hope that’s clear.

These sessions are always good value under Rob’s probing chairmanship and we enjoyed a good-natured debate.  For the next few days you can listen on i-Player at http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/p00ksb1l – we are the final hour of the three hour programme.

Yesterday’s topics ranged from Colonel Gadaffi’s death to Nicholas Sarkozy’s baby, via Dale’s Farm and whether politicians are too posh.  And not surprisingly, given next Monday’s referendum debate in the House of Commons, that topic also came under scrutiny.

Mr Farage was in Hertfordshire for a meeting in Broxbourne, so Rob interviewed him down the line while we listened in the studio.

I am in disagreement with the announced three line whips from all three main parties including my own requiring their MP’s to vote against having a referendum.

I don’t like three-line whips at the best of times but this one in particular negates the spirit of e-petitions.  More than 100,000  members of the public have succeeded in getting enough support to trigger this debate in the House of Commons and they deserve the issue to be debated in a genuine way, without distasteful control-freakery from the political class because the result might not be to their liking.

I am among the increasingly diminishing number of people who had the chance to vote back in 1975 in Harold Wilson’s referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Community (as it then was).  I voted Yes then, I would still vote Yes today and argue my corner with EU opponents.  So Mr Farage and I agree on the need to lance the boil by holding a referendum issue, although we are on different sides with regard to the substantive issue.

But the Europe debate deserves honesty.  Mr Farage let rip on air with a farrago of anti-European tirades including Europe giving prisoners the right to vote.  This is nothing to do with the European Union in Brussels, which is what Monday’s referendum debate is about.  It comes from our being signatories quite separately to the Winston Churchill inspired post-war European Convention on Human Rights, which covers many more countries than the European Union member states.

(And of course there is no mandatory right for prisoners to have the vote under the Convention.  The European judges  merely asked for evidence from the UK that there was a nuanced and reasoned approach to depriving certain prisoners of the vote rather than imposing a crude blanket ban.)

Mr Farage admitted he knew this issue came from the quite separate court in Strasbourg and not from Brussels, but was unrepentant.  Why let the facts get in the way of a good rant?  No wonder politicians get a bad name.

His invective also turned to the costs laid on Britain from new employment directives.  Sadly we were not given the opportunity to challenge his argument on air.  The reality is that non-EU member states in Europe such as Switzerland and Norway have to sign up to the rules and norms of the EU if they want open access to the huge European market – but without having any say in how the rules are made.  You pays your money but can’t influence the choice.

Mr Farage and colleagues may consider that to be a fair price, but they should not suggest that leaving the EU but keeping access to its markets can be pain and cost-free.

Let there be a free debate and free vote on Monday.  There are constitutional (and strongly principled) arguments why referendums are not appropriate to parliamentary democracies, and those arguments will be put.  I wish there was then going to be a free vote based on the quality of the arguments for and against.

Should the vote for a referendum be won, let us subsequently have an open and honest campaign based on the facts, the full facts and nothing but the facts.

The letter posed some technical legal questions which were more a matter for the council lawyers, but we were also asked if there were any new matters or change in circumstances which we considered material to the Secretary of State’s further consideration of this appeal, and also whether the Inquiry should be re-opened.

I sat down with my old friend David Parry, who also gave evidence at the last Inquiry identifying in particular flaws in the methodology used to calculate likely lorry traffic from the Helioslough project.

Together we have identified two substantial changes in circumstance warranting a re-opening of the Inquiry.  The M25 widening is now an actuality but we do not have any evidence as to the impact this has had on local feeder and distributor roads.  And Luton and South Bedfordshire have formally endorsed Sundon quarry as an alternative site, which again has happened since the Public Inquiry closed.

Traffic was a  key issue in determining whether the Park Street site could accommodate a huge lorry terminal.  We just don’t know how much additional traffic is being generated on local roads because of the widened M25.  It seems obvious that there should be new traffic counts which could be presented as evidence to a re-opened Inquiry and allow this issue to be properly considered.

As for the Sundon quarry site, I have written previously in this blog how it is a far better place for a strategic railfreight terminal.  Now the local planning authorities in Bedfordshire  have confirmed that they want it, but this was only after the close of the Public Inquiry. The argument made at the previous inquiry that Sundon was not sufficiently advanced to be a viable alternative has now been blown out of the water.

The new coalition government is promoting localism.  Well this local support in Bedfordshire for a different, better option is another significant new circumstance.  It must be taken into account.

On the basis of these significant changes in circumstances, David and I have jointly written today to the Department calling for the Public Inquiry to be re-opened.  Watch this space.

I’m not sure there is anything quite like it anywhere else in Britain, although Cruse is the nearest equivalent.  I first came across it when I was asked to speak to a group of recently bereaved people, I was hugely impressed, and so only too pleased to accept an invitation to become a trustee.  Its office is currently based in the United Reform Church at the Beaconsfield Road/Victoria Street junction, from where a dedicated team of volunteers and a small permanent office staff do so much good.  You can read more about it at http://bit.ly/qN3lhJ

As with all these organisations, raising the funds to operate is a constant struggle.  So I was delighted to attend yesterday’s first ever Darren’s Buggy Dash held at Garden Fields School.  Kirsty Hall, who teaches there, was tragically widowed when she was pregnant with her first child.  She found the subsequent support from SABN invaluable and she devised yesterday’s event as a fundraiser in memory of her husband Darren.

It was a great idea.  There were races for mums and children, in which Kirsty took part with son Ollie.  There were races for children aged 5-15 and also for under-5’s.  Dads could race too.  All pushing a buggy or similar.  For some reason the grandparents race did not have any entrants…

Combine the races with a hog roast, lots of stalls, a bouncy castle and slide, fantastic home-made cakes and an Indian summer, and you had all the ingredients for a joyous and laughter-filled occasion.  And it raised a satisfying amount of money for SABN.

Particular thanks must go to Garden Fields School, which both hosted the event and provided so many of the helpers on the day in terms of Kirsty’s work colleagues – and customers too in terms of children and parents.  I had never been in the school before, although I have frequently been to the Music School next door.  It looks like a lovely environment in which to start learning.

St Albans is so lucky in its residents and all their multiple talents.

Mrs Thatcher’s hatred of local councils meant that she changed the business rating system so that local councils collected the business rate but paid it straight to central government who then dished it back out according to Whitehall whim.

What incentive did that give to councils to think of the wellbeing of local business?  What incentive did it give to local businesses to get really involved in local affairs?

It is a tribute to both sides that they do work together on eg local strategic partnerships, but far better if there is a clear financial nexus between the two sides.  This development marks another fundamental shift from Thatcherite central control as reinforced by Blair and Brown back to genuine local responsibility and a new shared agenda.

Of course there will have to be mechanisms to share out the absolutely huge revenues generated by eg Heathrow Airport and the City of London.  There will continue to be some equalisation of income between local areas as there is today.  But the government has announced that all future growth in revenues generated by Business Rate beyond their level in 2013 will be 100 percent retained by the Local Authority in which they are paid.

This will give St Albans District and Herts County Council a real incentive to work with local businesses for the benefit of all of us – and those same businesses should become much more interested in how their money is being spent, for example the quality of schools or our highway infrastructure.

My grandfather was a local government official in the Highlands of Scotland in the first part of the twentieth century.  It is fascinating to read his diaries about how local action, initiative and enterprise brought mains water and electric light to Highland communities.  He eventually retired early because he objected even then to the dead hand of central government interfering more and more in local affairs.

Even with inevitable wrinkles to iron out, this announcement would have brought a smile to his face.

Essentially the council has passed everything back into the lap of Secretary of State Eric Pickles and is hoping that he will come up with improved substantive grounds as to why Colnbrook is a better place than Park Street to site a railfreight terminal to serve the north-west quadrant of London.

My niggling doubt is that we saw the Conservative-controlled county council refuse to stand up for local residents in the second public inquiry, leaving it to the District Council and to STRiFE.  That was a dereliction of duty of their part and must have played a part in allowing the Inspector to recommend approval of the project,  leading to the Secretary of State having to over-rule him, and so this most recent legal challenge by HelioSlough.

I hope the new Conservative-led district council administration, which is in St Albans but not of St Albans, is not wobbling in resolve to stand up for residents in the south of the district.