Portishead Railway needs your support

The Portishead Railway offers shovel-ready mass transit for a town that desperately needs it. But with the stopping of ‘Restoring Your Railway’ funds, the project is once again in the balance. The Portishead Railway needs your support now more than ever.

Portishead is an essential part of MetroWest, the plan to open up existing railway lines around Bristol for local passenger trains. The route was to have been part-funded by the previous government’s ‘Restoring Your Railway (RYR)’ scheme. On 29th July 2024 Rachel Reeves, the new Chancellor of the Exchequer, cancelled this scheme.

Bristol Rail Campaign strongly believes that alternative funding must be found to ensure that Portishead’s mass transit route is not lost.

Shovel-ready

In April 2024, almost everything was in place to allow work to start on this project. It is shovel-ready. A long and expensive approval process, necessary to ensure that the scheme would have a nature-positive impact on the Avon Gorge, was complete.

The final step needed to allow construction to begin was the submission of the Full Business Case to HM Treasury. This was just about to be submitted when the General Election was called, putting all spending decisions on hold.

Most of the funding for the scheme does not come from the Restoring Your Railway fund. Portishead predated RYR by many years, and most of the money needed comes from a package of other sources. RYR was just a convenient way for the Department for Transport to budget for the final sums needed to complete the work.

Key part of MetroWest

MetroWest is the only programme of work that can deliver significant improvements to public transport in our area in the medium term.

New bus priority measures may bring some welcome benefits, but Bristol’s narrow arterial roads mean there is little scope for much improvement any time soon. Looking further ahead, the Future4West mass transit project remains a long term aspiration. The Portishead line, on the other hand, is literally shovel-ready.

Upgrading the Portishead line for passenger trains will give people a reliable way to travel between Bristol and Portishead in only 24 minutes. The fastest bus can take nearly an hour, when it’s not held up in traffic.

Call to action

In September Louise Haigh, the Transport Secretary, will review some schemes caught by the RYR decision. This will include the Portishead Railway.

We need to make sure that this review has a positive outcome.

Portishead Railway Group has discussed this with new local MP Sadik Al-Hassan, and have determined that the most effective way to petition parliament is by use of a paper petition. Other methods such as e-petitions are less likely to be effective. We urge you to download a copy of the petition and get as many signatures as you can.

The briefing document for the petition is here: Download briefing document

The petition form is here: Download petition form

Please note that:

• Only original sheets can be used – no scans, photocopies etc;
• Sheets must be single sided;
• Only original, handwritten signatures with name and address are acceptable;
• People must only sign once, no matter how many times they’ve seen it!

When you have gathered as many signatures as you can, please return the paper form to us: You can either:

Drop them off by 26th August 2024 at::

Portishead Railway Petition
17 St John’s Rd,
Bristol
BS8 2ET

…or bring them to an event we will be holding at Bristol Temple Meads Station at 7pm Tuesday 27th August:

Location – Station Approach, Bristol Temple Meads (what3words: ///boom.chose.sugars)

Anyone wishing to show support for the scheme, or sign the petition, is invited to attend.