LOCAL councillor Andrew Govier abstained in a recent vote at Taunton Deane Borough Council on plans to spend £40,000 on a feasibility study into a new railway station for Wellington.

Cllr Govier has looked into proposals to open a new railway station in the town over the last few years and has had numerous discussions with representatives from other councils and the rail industry. Here he looks at some of the issues.

The old station cannot be re-opened without the relocation of the Swallowfield factory. The old platform is next to the factory’s pressurised tanks.

The factory is keen to move to another site close to Wellington but there is a significant financial gap between what the factory site is worth and the relocation costs. This is likely to be increased significantly if part of the site is to be used for a station and parking rather than income-generating housing or commercial uses.

Due the topography of the land in that part of Wellington there is unlikely to be another suitable site.

Getting trains to stop at Wellington given the close proximity of Tiverton Parkway.

A railway expert advised that: “Even if someone bought and paid for a station, possible ‘slow train’ loop and associated car parking, you would find it very difficult to persuade the train companies to stop at Wellington.”

The reason is they are commercial companies and they are not interested in picking people up from Wellington who currently catch the train at Tiverton or Taunton. They would need hundreds of extra passengers – that is new – every day to make it viable. The suggestion is that the station would be a ‘metro style’ one where small ‘stopping trains’ would call. This means that ‘inter-city’ trains would not stop there, so if passengers wanted to catch a train to London, they would need to catch a train to Taunton and then change.

No real commuter opportunities from Wellington to Taunton.

A large proportion of the employment opportunities in Taunton are at the ‘wrong’ end of town, that is Musgrove Park Hospital, County Hall and the main retail centre.

Why would a Wellington resident use a train to get to Taunton when a regular bus service takes them close to all of these?

The infrastructure in the north of the town is not set up for the thousands of extra cars that would be likely to have to drive to the station every week, if it were to be viable.

Hundreds of extra vehicles would be using the roads in Tonedale, Waterloo Road, Station Road and Holyoake Street.