The Bristol Rail Campaign Plan for Rail includes opening new stations on new lines. We want more people in more places to have easy to access the rail network. The best way to achieve that is to give them a local train station.
MetroWest
The West of England Combined Authority (WECA) plans to open new stations at Portishead, Pill, Henbury, North Filton, Ashley Down and Charfield. Its MetroWest project has already delivered half-hourly trains to Avonmouth, Gloucester (via Yate) and Westbury and a new station at Portway Park & Ride. It has longer term aspirations to electrify the local network and to improve service frequencies to Bedminster and Parson Street.
More places
We strongly support MetroWest and are very pleased to see these developments. But we think they need to be more ambitious. As well as WECA’s proposals, we support new stations for:
- Thornbury, which could be served by reopening the freight line to Tytherington Quarry;
- St Anne’s Park and Saltford, on the main line from Bristol to Bath;
- Portbury and Ashton Gate on the Portishead line;
- Long Ashton, on the main line from Bristol to Weston-super-Mare;
- Uphill, on the main line from Weston-super-Mare to Bridgwater;
- Corsham, on the Bristol to London main line between Bath and Chippenham, and
- Stroudwater, on the Bristol to Gloucester main line near Stroud.
We strongly feel that Pilning Station should be developed to provide a useful transport hub for Severnside.
Better access
Existing stations should not be left out. All stations need to be fully accessible, and interchange between bus and rail services needs to be improved greatly.