The Anonymous Widower

A Second New Stations Fund Is Launched

This article in the European Railway Review is entitled £20m fund for new railway stations across England and Wales.

The twenty million pounds is the second New Stations Fund, which provides up to seventy-five percent of the cost of a new or reopened station.

The first fund was used to help fund the following stations.

• Ilkeston in Derbyshire – New station – Opening in Autumn 2016
• Kenilworth near Coventry – New station – Opening in Summer 2017
• Lea Bridge in London – Reopened station – Opened in May 2016
• Newcourt in Devon – New station – Opened in June 2015
• Pye Corner, Newport – New station – Opened in December 2014.

Note that all stations are on existing railway lines.

Incidentally, I use Lea Bridge station about three or four times a month, as I have a direct bus connection to the station to connect to trains along the Lea Valley.

Which stations in Wikipedia’s lkist of possible proposed stations, do I think will be funded by the next New Station Fund?

These are a few that I think could be possible.

• Aldridge in Walsall
• Ashton Gate in Bristol
• Caerleon in Newport
• Castle Bromwich in Birmingham
• Charfield in Gloucestershire
• Chipping Sodbury in Gloucestershire
• Cottam in Preston
• Corsham in Wiltshire
• Cwm in Monmouthshire
• Egginswell in Devon
• Finningley in South Yorkshire
• Haxby in York
• Henbury in Bristol
• Horfield in Bristol
• Leiston in Suffolk
• Long Ashton in Somerset
• Marsh Barton in Devon
• North Filton in Bristol
• Park Farm in Kent
• Portishead in Bristol
• Soham in Cambridgeshire
• Town Meadow in Wirral
• Wisbech in Cambridgeshire
• Wootton Bassett in Wiltshire

Note.

1. Bristol seems to have a lot of possibilities, but that is because they are creating MetroWest.
2. I have rejected several schemes as they are rather large and I reckpon, there is a practical limit of a station costing say five million pounds.
3. I have also rejected stations, where a whole line like the Camp Hill Line or the Wealden Line is proposed to be reopened.
4. Leiston, Soham and Wisbech are additions of my own, based on my thoughts in Making Sense Of The New East Anglia Franchise.
5. There are no new Welsh proposals outside South-East Wales, which got Pye Corner in the first New Stations Fund.

I suspect that now the fund has been announced, some good proposals will be put forward.

Out of interest, these are the numbers of new and reopened stations of the last few years.

• 2013 – 1
• 2014 – 3
• 2015 – 12
• 2016  – 4

I think that 2015 has the highest total, due to the reopening of the Borders Railway.

August 27, 2016 - Posted by AnonW | Transport/Travel | New Stations, Stations