There are serious obstacles are in the way of reopening Stonehouse Bristol Road Railway station that must be addressed by the council if the project is to achieve the next stage of planning.
I recently invited the rail minister Huw Merriman to a meeting involving Stonehouse Town Council, the district council, Network Rail and GWR to discuss how the station could be reopened.
Network Rail and GWR said more work is needed on infrastructure, parking capacity and how people would reach the station. The district council also admitted it had not contacted the new landowner.
The council’s application said £20m would reopen the station but a wide-ranging estimate for infrastructure at £1 million to £40 million raised questions at the meeting.
It was useful for the councils to go through the range of barriers that potentially exist at this meeting with the minister. I am surprised to see the Green Party councillors who came to the meeting have subsequently failed to mention all the serious challenges to the project they accepted exist or refer to the questions asked about the existing application.
For some councillors to suggest the government just needs to say 'yes or no' for the next stage to commence is frankly misleading. Many of the issues discussed are not new, they are longstanding concerns that need to be addressed and, in some cases, should have been before the meeting with the minister. I think most people would agree that basic work has to be in place before tens of millions of taxpayers’ money is spent or even lesser sums on more development work. No government of any colour is going to sign off on an infrastructure cost estimate of between £1m and £40m, for example, and I hope that the council will get in touch with the new land owner regularly now.
Network Rail explained that infrastructure matters have been key in other projects’ success or failure so there needs to be a proper plan for how people can get to the station and on parking. The Green party might want every single person here to walk or cycle but that’s just not real life.
I will do whatever is needed and help iron out local issues because I have worked very hard to get the project to this position and it's important to keep going.
Network Rail and GWR were excellent. I applaud the local campaigners for all they have done too but this project will only happen with a realistic and honest approach about what needs to be done.