Wiltshire Council, Devizes Development Partnership and Great Western Railway have been working alongside Network Rail in order to complete the study which has revealed that the best case for a new railway station in the town should come as part of a broader rail improvements programme for Wiltshire.
The feasibility study comes following a strategic outline business case that was made to the Department for Transport in 2021 for the Restoring Your Railway Fund programme and was promoted by Wiltshire Council and was supported by the Devizes Development Partnership which put forward a proposal of a Devizes Gateway station at Lydeway.
Work to date has found that a new standalone station for Devizes would not be likely to provide value for money and would therefore need to come as part of a wider rail improvement programme for Wiltshire.
The interim feasibility study results have now been submitted to the Department for Transport which is set to decide if the project will move forward to the next stage of development.
Wiltshire Council and its local partners are currently underway with work to discover potential new services which could benefit Wiltshire and what that would require in terms of infrastructure and trains to make this exciting project viable.
Daniel Round, Network Rail's industry programme director for the West of England, said: “We know how popular a new station at Devizes would be locally and we've worked hard to see if it was economically viable. However, we found that the costs of providing a standalone station at Devizes would outweigh the benefits. This is because stopping the existing train services that operate between London and the South West at a new Devizes station would have a far-reaching knock-on effect on the smooth running of trains over a wider area, impacting far more people than those likely to join trains at Devizes.
“A new stopping service which extends the London to Newbury/Bedwyn service to Westbury, calling at Devizes, could provide the wider connectivity the community is looking for. This would not only require more trains but also more infrastructure, including an extra platform at Westbury to allow the service to turn around.
“While this is disappointing in relation to a standalone station for Devizes, the study identified that there would be benefits to increasing train service connectivity across Wiltshire to local stations and on the high-speed network across the region.
“We have given these findings to the DfT and will continue to work collaboratively with Wiltshire Council, Devizes Development Partnership, GWR and other partners to consider a long-term programme of wider rail service improvements for Wiltshire.”
Danny Kruger, MP for Devizes, said: “Restoring rail connections to Devizes has long been an aspiration for many local people and something that I've been very keen to see move forward since I was elected.
“Support from the Government's Restoring Your Railway Fund has enabled a great deal of work to be done towards this aim and the feasibility study puts us in a good place to work together to develop a wider rail investment programme for Wiltshire.”
Cllr Caroline Thomas, Wiltshire Council Cabinet Member for Transport, said: “Network Rail's work has furthered our understanding of what a new station at Devizes Gateway could look like, and the other changes in Westbury and elsewhere in Wiltshire that will be needed to add the station to the rail network.
“One of our Business Plan goals is to have well-connected communities, and we will continue to work with Network Rail, other rail industry partners, and other stakeholders as we develop our rail strategy for the county.
“This strategy will form a key part of our Local Transport Plan, which will set out a vision for the future of Wiltshire transport that is sustainable and affordable, along with priorities for investment, such as Westbury and Devizes Gateway, which we will work with government to secure for Wiltshire.”
Iain Wallis, Chair of Devizes Development Partnership, said: “We recognise the challenge ahead to realise the long-held aspirations of our local community for better connectivity.
“Our focus moving forward will be to build on the detailed work done by Network Rail. We will keep raising awareness of the importance of this project and the need for rail improvements in Wiltshire. We will continue to work closely with Wiltshire Council and key stakeholders to help identify potential sources of funding and maintain momentum.
“Our goal is a new station for Devizes as part of the wider investment in Wiltshire rail services to encourage opportunities for economic growth, level up access to jobs and higher education and support a more sustainable transport future.”
To read the interim feasibility study, please visit: http://www.networkrail.co.uk/devizes
Hmm…so the reason that the cost of a replacement station at Devizes “outweighs its benefits” is because of the knock-on effect of stopping trains there on the rest of the network and not, apparently, because it wouldn’t be used enough by Devizes residents. This seems to me to be a weak argument – surely if the station was provided with loops to the platforms from the main line there would be no effect on trains that didn’t stop there as they would bypass the stopped trains. Has this not been considered?
Taking the “knock-on effect on the network” argument to its logical extreme would mean that you would never have any intermediate stations on any railway line because this would be said to adversely affect non-stopping trains from one end of the line to the other.