The Melksham News - July 2012 - Part 2, TransWilts Rail, Wilts and Berks Canal
Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2012-07-23 08:51:05 - Graham Ellis
This is the second post in a series of news update on various projects in the Melksham Area. In my roles as President of the Melksham Chamber of Commerce and Press Secretary for the TransWilts Community Rail Partnership, and in my business role of running a hotel and training centre in the town, I tend to get very much involved in what's coming up, and as we hed for the Summer lull, I'm posting briefly to tell you what's coming up ahead.
For Part 1 - Melksham Campus and Melksham Chamber of Commerce - see [here].
TransWilts Trains .... At the end of June, the government announced that Wiltshire's bid for 4.25 million pounds of funding from Government has been approved under the LSTF (Local Sustainable Transport Fund). The funding includes expenditure on improving station facilities and access and interchange links across the county; at Melksham, the station "loop" via Foundry close will be completed to allow bus services via the station, for example. A parallel guarantee by Wiltshire Council of 1.25 million to "seed" the startup costs of an improved TransWilts rail service, reducing the minimum interval between trains to 2 hours on the Swindon to Westbury section, means that we're now all set up with the finances for an appropriate service, and for infrastructure to be able to handle the traffic that's generated around the stations by such services. You've only to look at the overcrowding of station facilities for the summer Weymouth service last summer, the Santa special, or the steam train to Canterbury that ran last month to realise how vital the elements are in supporting each other.
All train services in the South West are about to be refranchised. The current franchise was due to end next April, but has now been extended to around next July (2013), and the invitation to tender (ITT) document is now overdue to the four shortlisted bidders. The TransWilts Community Rail Partnership (a CRP 'in waiting') has been in touch with all four bidders, and is talking with them all - yet each in a very different way - in order to ensure that each has the best understanding of local issues and conditions to ensure that their bid maximises the benefit to the communities served as well as working robustly and profitably for the chosen francishee. Once we know what's in the ITT, we may be able to (or may wish) to make further inputs.
There's no extra service on the TransWilts this summer on Sunday mornings - meaning no day-out opportunities from Melksham to Weymouth by train. On Monday to Friday, you could (technically) do it if you wanted to leave Melksham at 06:37, wait for 2.5 hours at Westbury because you've missed a connection by 8 minutes, and pay twice the Sunday fare. And on Saturday there are no southbound trains until 15:48 (Saturday) or 18:44 (Sunday), so no chance of a day out at the weekend. Which ... does give those of us involved in planning for the future a little more time to plan. We're not looking at 8 extra trains per summer - we're looking at 8 extra trains per day.
The ITT will be with us soon. The bids will be due in late autumn (I guess they too are delayed), the decision made around the new year, and the new franchisee will be planning to take over (or carry on) around 5 months later. Service changes will come at a point - we hope December 2013 - thereafter. And there's much work to do in terms of publicity and helping to tune things from there onwards. Wiltshire Council has formed a Rail Implementation group; we wish them well and will be working with them. We will be working - as promised in the CRP, to improve stations, usage, information systems - to provide marketing and publicity and to ensure that a decent service regained on the line is retained.
Wilts and Berks Canal .... This is one I'm only on the periphery of. But I understand that nearly all the planning papers have been submitted, and this one's going through the system. The new broadbeamed canal will run from the Kennet and Avon at Semington, near to the old A350 road (to its west) to the outskirts of Melksham, where it will turn along the bypass and drop via a flight of locks into the river. Passing under the bypass bridge, boats will travel upstream to the Town bridge. The onward section, with a narrow lock beside the weir at Melksham Gate, and then on via a new cut / stream to the old canal route, will be a subsequent phase.
The new canal will bring a tremendous visitor / commercial / economic boost to Melksham. The section at Berryfield will put a real resource at the heart of that community (though there remain some local concerns at elements of disruption around the Village Hall area), the section alongside the bypass will provide a really attractive activity walk section, with easy transfer to the town through the grounds of Melksham House / the Campus, and the river section will take our backwater and liven it with boats and waterside activities. An element of concern remains with the nature reserve team at Conigre Mead. The canal is really core to Melksham, and I look forward to seeing it in the town centre within a handful of years, and progressing on to Lacock with another handful.