THE population of Wellington is being urged to get behind a proposed new metro-style station for the town by signing a petition launched at a meeting.

Wellington’s MP Rebecca Pow invited people to an open meeting at the Alan Rogers Centre at Wellington School and estimated a turnout of about 170.

They heard a panel made up of Ms Pow; Deputy Leader of Taunton Deane Borough Council Mark Edwards; town, district and county councillor Andrew Govier; and Wellington Mayor Janet Lloyd debate the issues.

Ms Pow said people could sign the petition and added: “The more people we can show who are interested, the more credibility we have in Parliament.” Support for the station was evident in the room when she asked the audience if they supported the idea and the overwhelming majority put their hands up.

Ms Pow said the idea was for a small stopping station which would cost £7-10 million, with a similar station at Cullompton – the schemes were mutually dependent.

Mark Edwards said timetabling work done after the business case was set out had satisfied Network Rail of the potential. The options were extension of the Cardiff to Exeter network – which Ms Pow said Network Rail favoured – improvements of the fast line Taunton to Plymouth and a local shuttle service Taunton to Exeter. Basic desktop engineering studies had been done about positioning and the type of platform.

He said: “It is challenging in Wellington and it is challenging in Cullompton, there are not easy solutions but there are solutions. If we don’t start on the journey we will not complete it and it might take five, it might take ten years, but if we don’t start we definitely won’t get it. A lot of work has been done and an enormous amount of work needs to be done but without people’s support it is clearly not worth doing.”

Mr Govier said there could be considerable benefits to having a railway station. He said comments he had recently made in WWN may have made some think he was against station but they were intended to manage expectations – the impression had been given a station could open within a couple of years but that was very unlikely.

He said Swallowfield was next to the railway line and it had to relocate. The directors wanted to move to a site just outside town but the cost was huge and far exceeded the money Swallowfield would get for its land.

He also questioned some of the assumptions about people commuting to Taunton. He said many people used buses and that many would use their cars because of where they worked, with major employers at county hall and Musgrove Park Hospital, and lots of jobs based in the town centre.

He added: “I think there is a huge issue to prove the business case. When we met people from First Great Western in 2012 they said we would have to provide hundreds of new passengers every day. And we need to address the Swallowfield issue before we spend a large amount of money on a feasibility study.”

Mr Govier was concerned all eggs were being put in one basket as far as the railway was concerned and that bus services were important. It was impossible to get a bus back to Wellington from Taunton after 8pm and he would like to see Taunton Deane look at an integrated transport policy, not just focus on the railway station. He said it would be a lot more convenient for many people to catch a bus than a train.

Janet Lloyd said she agreed with Mr Govier ‘to an extent’ about the Swallowfield site and that people on the west and south of town could easily get to Tiverton Parkway and catch trains to destinations all over the country.

It was necessary to attract more people to Wellington and a shuttle-type train could bring them in. She was also concerned about congestion in Wellington and feared it would get worse.

She also questioned how people on the south side of town, like the new Jurston development, would get to the railway station on the north side of town.