Ernest Marples: The Shadow Behind Beeching

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Comprising correspondence, official and personal papers, pocket and desk diaries, press cuttings, photographs, audio tapes and dictaphone tapes. Roads Were Not Built for Cars' is a history book, focussing on a time when cyclists had political clout, in Britain and especially in America. Fronted by Sir Ivan Stedeford, the Managing Director of Tube Investments, it also included Frank Kearton of Courtaulds, Henry Benson of Cooper Brothers, and Dr.

The book examines the Beeching Report which looked at the railway system and infamous for it cuts but also looks at transport policy around the time and then the Labour Govt took over as well. The Beeching cuts, or "Beeching Axe" that followed resulted in the major closures for both stations and lines. Marples, Ridgway and Partners was a Westminster-based civil engineering contractor founded, and majority-owned, by Marples, who was transport minister from 1959 to 1964. In the 1945 General Election he stood as the Conservative candidate for the constituency of Wallasey, a seat he retained until his resignation from Parliament in 1974. Following their submission of their report, Marples would then be expected to review the recommendations and in due course confirm the closure, with or without adopting the additional measures.But UK motor industry output has recovered somewhat in the last three decades, even if this is little publicised and most of it is foreign owned. It was over his handling of British Railways that Ernest Marples has received the most hostile coverage, that he was in collusion with the various conspiratorial interests mentioned earlier, to force the public onto the roads. As the authors state, Beeching’s proposals continued a series of closures that started many years before his appointment: between 1950 and 1962, over 300 branch lines had already closed and 174,000 railway jobs had gone. The greater availability of credit enabled many ordinary people to dip their toes into the world of car ownership. Marples would only be liable for Capital Gains Tax at 30 per cent on the transfer to Vin which, as an offshore company, would only be liable for stamp duty at 2 per cent.

Interviewed by Graham Robson in the January 2000 edition of MINI Magazine, he said: ‘A friend told me about this car in 1979. But this background in construction also meant that he was the best choice in Westminster to push forward the modernisation of Britain’s road network, and the political consensus of the time was that this was the way forward.Marples had a hand in many other polices in addition to the railways, such as housing and pensions and was both Postmaster General and Minister of Transport.