Submitted by: The Committee of Management 

The National Council of Women in Conference assembled, while welcoming the constructive and far-sighted plans for freight services contained in Doctor Beeching’s Report The Shaping of British Railways deplores the negative nature of the main recommendations on passenger transport.  The National Council of Women considers that if these proposals are implemented, any financial saving that might be effected by the British Railways Board would be far outweighed by the cost to the nation as a whole:– 

(a) in the financial burden involved in any comprehensive plan of new road building; and 

(b) by the threatened increase in road accidents. 

The Council would particularly draw the attention of Her Majesty’s Government to the comparative figures of road and rail accidents (about 85,000 road accidents per annum against about 100 on the railways).