Come to our meeting in Brighouse!

HADRAG annual meeting will be in Brighouse at the end of June open to all rail users – actual and would-be – at our first in-person meeting since lockdown. Focus will be on community rail, with a new partnership now spanning the Pennines across Rochdale and Calderdale districts.

We look forward to welcoming as speaker Karen Hornby, former rail professional and newly appointed community rail partnership (CRP) officer for the Calder Valley Line. The CRP wants to work alongside station “friends” groups such as those at Brighouse, Sowerby Bridge and Mytholmroyd. They have transformed their stations and continue to work magnificently.

Community rail will be main theme at HADRAG’s annual general meeting, on Sat 25 June. The Calder Valley Line now has a community rail partnership (CRP) with the backing of Calderdale and Rochdale councils. Our speaker Karen Hornby is the partnership’s officer. Karen has a history of working in rail, having recently stood down as Network Rail head of performance and customer relationship based in Manchester. Karen was responsible for budgets at four of Network Rail’s managed stations.

As rail recovers after the pandemic, the CRP will have a vital role in raising the profile of our line, from Brighouse and Halifax to Rochdale and beyond. This builds on – but does not replace or compete with – the success of station “friends” and partnership groups. Those groups have done such a fantastic job at Brighouse, Sowerby Bridge,  Mytholmroyd and elsewhere. The CV Line CRP must build on that success as it raises the profile of the whole line involving businesses, and wider community groups and building a whole-line profile. CRPs already co-exist to mutual benefit with station groups on other lines – Bentham, Mid-Cheshire, Lancashire and elsewhere. For example http://thebenthamline.co.uk/about_us/ .

Venue

This year’s venue is the community hall behind St John’s church just off Gooder Lane. It is less than 5 min walk from Brighouse train station. Bus 563 from Halifax and Elland goes past, and routes 548/549 Halifax-Rastrick & 363 Bradford-Huddersfield are close by. And of course there is the train, accessing up and down the valley, plus Bradford, Halifax and Huddersfield