A public meeting held at Chippenham in Wiltshire heard how a planned MetroWest Bath & Wiltshire could provide a more frequent rail service to reduce road congestion and minimise the effect of new housing.

Nathan Sealy of rail engineers Amey explained that the company was already delivering the South Wales Metro, and the lessons learned there could be applied to a Metro system for Bath and Wiltshire, especially if disused platforms at Chippenham and Westbury were brought back into use and a new passing loop installed at Melksham station.

The proposals would cost less than £50M for the whole area and could unlock housing for over 50,000 new homes within walking distance of existing and new stations.

It was noted that the Government’s latest policy for rail is for track and train to be united under Great British Railways to make it more responsive to the needs of local areas, and ensure the railway delivers for local users and communities, rather than focusing solely on the national level.

Last year, Network Rail Group Property delivered around 4,000 homes, which, if it were classed as a housebuilder, would put it in the top five of UK house builders.

The organisation is now being combined with London Continental Railways to deliver 50,000 new homes on railway land over the next 10 years.

With 350,000 people living in the Bath/Western Wiltshire/Frome area, equivalent to a city the size of Cardiff, the area deserves an integrated transport system, as public transport is currently infrequent and often slow.

A frequent service on the lines of a metro with modern trains would revolutionise transport in the whole area.

The new South Wales Metro has been built over lines that used to transport coal from the valleys to the Cardiff Docks, but now has four Metro trains per hour.

For a true Metro service, two trains an hour is the minimum so that people can just turn up and go. However, the existing network is restricted because it is used by both long-distance services to London and freight.

The meeting heard from Dan Oakey, Head of Regional & Welsh Development at Great Western Railway, about five new stations the operator has opened in the past few years.

In Exeter, 80,000 journeys were made from Marsh Barton in its first year, with 82% of them being new to travelling by train. Six new stations are being planned for MetroWest in Bristol, and a new Oakhampton Interchange Station is currently under construction.

A new train operator, Go-op, plans to run services from Taunton to Westbury, with four each day continuing via Melksham to Swindon, and also make connections to Weston-super-Mare and Southampton.

The meeting concluded by hearing that the current planning system and five-year land supply rules make strategic rail-focused development difficult, although it will be within the remit of the impending Mayoral Combined Authorities to deliver integrated transport/planning at the required scale.