The Area Committee heard objections at a public meeting at Bridgnorth on 8 November 1962 and on 20 November confirmed that it had reported to Marples that closure would cause hardship to users.

While in the UK Buchanan’s ideas were used to construct urban flyovers, in the Netherlands he inspired ‘residential yards’, the famous ‘woonerf’ of Niek De Boer, professor of urban planning at Delft University of Technology. A final chapter covers Marples’ life from his poor relationship with McMillan’s successor, Ted Heath, until his death in 1978. The question for Marples was whether the rail network had a realistic future in the face of competition from the road? His subsequent report “ The Reshaping of British Railways” (commonly referred to as “Beeching’s Axe”) led to drastic cuts across the UK and the dismembering of many of Britain’s local and historic railway lines.Labour, despite promises, proved little friendlier to the railways but a more positive approach to loss-making passenger services eventually emerged under Barbara Castle. Where he came from, how he got to those positions of power, and what he achieved are far more significant. Following the October 1964 General Election, Marples was succeeded as Transport Minster by Labour’s Barbara Castle.

It does not take much of a leap of imagination to visualise him conspiring to destroy Britain’s railway network as a consequence. However that didn’t happen as quickly as he expected or at all and the car disappeared after a little while.

When Harold Macmillan became Prime Minister in January 1957, he appointed Marples as Postmaster General.