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The story of the railway land at Melksham Station

Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2009-11-24 21:11:04 - Graham Ellis

Once upon a time, a long long time ago, Melksham Station was a thriving operation with two platforms, a reasonable service, and goods yards for general traffic, and for heavy industry such as Spencer's, near the railway. But that was a long, long time ago.

In the dark days of Dr Beeching, the station was closed and just a single track remained through, with a weekly passenger train and a bit of freight; the general traffic went, then all the heavy industry dedicated traffic. British Railways demolished the station. They sold off all of the land that they no longer used to the North West. They even sold off half of the remaining platform ... but they did retain a short piece of the platform, old good sheds to the South East, the approach road itself, and the land to the East of the approach road, which they let out to various companies.

A limited train service returned in 1985, using the short remaining piece of platform and the approach road still owned by BR. However, when BR was privatized the land outside the station's current limits - the approach road, the old goods sheds and the surrounding area - were transferred to the "BRB Residuary Body" which was set up with the task, basically, of working itself out of a job by getting rid of land that had once been used for railway purposes but wasn't any longer.

Over the past four of five years, BRB Residuary has given notice on several occasions that they're going to put up the land for auction, with a view to selling it for development. The only protection for station access looked like it would be just a right of way - i.e. footpath - and not motor vehicle access. That would certainly have scuppered any future plans for taxis, buses, or parking at the station (which, come on, a station with a fit-for-purpose service for a growing town currently of 22000 people needs), and would also have eliminated any possibility of continuing the cul-de-sac to the station through to Spencer's Gate, where a roundabout already has an outlet pointing to the station. The big benefit of this extra section would be to put the station on a road that buses and taxis could go THROUGH on their natural journeys - providing a good road-rail interchange. The extra road section would also open up easy access to Melksham Station from the Spencer Gate ("Foundry Close") development, Leekes and other stores in the area, North Melksham, and by footpath over the river to Melksham Forest. This extra road section is specifically 'reserved' in the county's plans, and the station / service is fully supported by them in the current local transport plan.

The train service itself - 5 trains each way daily - was cut back by First as part of their current franchise in 2006 at the behest of the Department for Transport, and we now have just two trains a day. It was regarded in "Marsham Street" - the DfT in London - as something of a basket case, and I was told by unofficial sources that "if you can win an improvement for this service, you can win it for any service." Hmmm - how times have changed in 3 years. The service remains dire (though we did get back a southbound Sunday service), but we've now got the best BCR (Benefit to Cost ratio) of any line that's looking at improvement in the South West.

So - coming up to date, we have ... a rail service that fully justifies improvement and a body looking to sell off the very land that would be needed as it's improved. Watch the local papers this week ... I think you'll find some excellent news in the next chapter. Not the end of any story, but certainly a superb step forward.

Story Continues .... [here]