Saltford Parish Council Councillors Chris Warren (Chair), Phil Harding (Vice-Chair), Jon Godfrey and B&NES Council’s Saltford Ward Cllr Duncan Hounsell met with transport officials from the West of England Combined Authority (WECA) and B&NES Council on 22 April at the station site.
The meeting was an opportunity for SPC and B&NES Ward Councillors present to summarise the case for re-opening Saltford railway station on the existing site and to discuss SPC’s request for WECA to fund the £70K feasibility study. (SPC’s request for WECA to fund the feasibility study was agreed in March, please see item 10 in SPC’s March 2022 minutes).
David Jarman, WECA’s Rail Programme Manager, advised the meeting that any decision on a feasibility study for Saltford would need to await the outcome of the current Greater Bristol Strategic Rail Study involving Network Rail and GWR; the study report would include new station options. Mr Jarman stated that the report was due around the end of May when a copy would be supplied to B&NES Council.
Ahead of the meeting, WECA Mayor Dan Norris had responded to SPC’s request for WECA to fund the feasibility study stating: ‘The Combined Authority has not discounted the potential for a station at Saltford… Our new Rail Programme Manager is currently reviewing this feasibility work to help establish the Combined Authority’s view on whether it should support progressing further studies’.
SPC will continue to act to achieve the re-opening of Saltford Station. Any further actions or updates will be resolved at SPC’s full council meetings. To find information about SPC’s meetings please see our Meetings – Agendas and Minutes page.
For background information about efforts to reopen Saltford Station, please see the talk given by Ward Cllr Duncan Hounsell (and at the time it was delivered, when Cllr Hounsell was also a SPC Cllr) at an event hosted by SPC on 5 January 2020 to mark the 50th anniversary of the closure of Saltford Railway Station.
