CONSTRUCTION work on Wellington’s new £20 million railway station is finally expected to start next spring, according to a senior Somerset Council officer.

Council transport policy manager Matthew Prince told councillors the main construction programme could be underway within six months if Network Rail’s final designs could be signed off shortly.

Mr Prince said: “It is progressing, they are doing the last stages of the final design, because the original design was about two or three years old when the approval was given.

“The last I heard, they are looking to start work in the late spring of next year.

“I am not 100 per cent sure, because it is still in the final stages of that design sign-off that Network Rail and Great Western Railway (GWR) have to go through before they can implement things.

“Things are moving.

“As with anything, big infrastructure projects do have a certain journey of their own when it comes to time.”

Bloor Homes recently finished an access road from Nynehead Road to the station site which will also serve as the spine of a 178-home housing estate it is building behind the town’s Lidl supermarket.

Vegetation clearance of the station site has also recently been completed.

The station, which will be unmanned and comprise only of two platforms connected by an overhead footbridge, will be served by GWR trains on the Exeter St David’s to Cardiff Central route via Bristol Temple Meads.

CrossCountry Trains, which only stops in Somerset at Weston super Mare and Taunton, has said its services will not call at Wellington.

The first GWR trains are not expected to stop at Wellington until near the end of 2028.

The council is currently holding a public consultation on a proposed £1.2 million programme of Taunton Road crossings, cycleways, and footpaths in connection with the railway project.