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Bristol 50? Bristol 25?

Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2012-04-17 22:31:51 - Graham Ellis

There's an urban area round major cities - a natural commuter area. And these days that natural surround area is regarded as being 50 miles. Indeed, I understand that the government is looking to more local control over public transport - in the style of PTE (Passenger Transport Executives) perhaps - and has requested that each of them looks to include at least 50 miles from the city centre.

What does that mean for Bristol?

As the crow flies, it includes Taunton, Yeovil, Salisbury, Swindon, Gloucester, Cheltenham, Abergavenny, Merthyr Tydfil and Bridgend along its border. And well within that area you have Bridgewater, Frome, Warminster, Westbury, Devizes, Trowbridge, Cirencester, Stroud, Lydney, Newport and Cardiff. Allowing for the dogleg around the Severn Tunnel or Bridge, The Valleys are largely excluded and allowing for the independent operation of transport in Wales, Newport and Cardiff are perhaps separated out.

Looking at even a half of that distance - 25 miles - where do you find? You find Weston-super-Mare, Clevedon, Portishead. You find Yate, Chipping Sodbury and Chepstow. And you find Bath, Chippenham and Melksham too.

The concept of "Bristol 50" is an excellent one. On one hand, localism to a local area is great - I'm a great supporter of the Area Board principle in Wiltshire where each town has a degree of autonomy, but you need a bigger area in terms of Transport - for that's all about people getting from one place to another.




So - taking a Melksham view - do we look to Bristol? Yes, indeed we do. It's 24 miles from us, and a popular journey. A lot of our people work there, either near to the centre / Temple Meads, or at Filton (Abbey Wood). And there's major shopping and entertainment there too, and our local (Bristol International) airport.

24 miles - so I easily get to Bristol centre in well under an hour, can I? Alas, no I can't. You can do it in just under the hour at 07:20, 19:11 and 19:48 from Melksham, by train. The 06:37 train takes 69 minutes. And by bus (with a change in Bath), you're looking at around an hour and three quarters. If you have a car? I would allow at least an hour and a half from leaving Melksham for a 9 a.m. appointment in Bristol City Centre, having either a long journey via the M4 motorway, or picking my way through the outskirts of Bath.

Bristol to Melksham - 45 minutes by train (but currently very occasional), 99 minutes by bus.


Bristol 50 / the new rail franchise, with a specification of a train every two hours each way on the TransWilts line, can bring trains calling at Melksham at times such as: 06:20, 06:43, 07:17, 07:50, 08:10, 09:18, 09:48, 11:01, 11:51, 13:01, 14:04, 14:51, 15:08, 15:52, 16:51, 17:39, 18:00, 18:44, 19:19, 19:49, 21:15 and 22:32. Almost all of those trains will have connections (change at Trowbridge or Chippenham) to Bristol Temple Meads, with journey times ranging from 40 minutes up to just over an hour.

From Melksham, we also look to Bath, to Swindon at almost exactly 25 miles, and to Salisbury at about 30 miles. Journey time to Swindon - at 06:20, 07:17, 07:50, 09:48, 11:51, 14:04, 14:51, 16:51, 17:39, 19:49 and 21:15 - will be under half an hour. Journey time to Salisbury - at 06:43, 08:10, 09:18, 11:01, 13:01, 15:08, 15:52, 18:00 and 19:19 - will be less than an hour.

The next franchise is a fantastic opportunity for Melksham. "Bristol 50" might be part of the delivery tool. Our community of 24,000 and growing can truely be part of the social and economic engine that's the Bristol Basin, rather than remaining one of the towns with some of the most deprived wards in Wiltshire.