| Archived Save the Train forum articles - 2005 to 2010. See below
West Wilts Core Strategy for next 20 years - 5639/9940 Written by admin (Graham Ellis) on Thursday, 7th February 2008 Although we are going unitary, this is an important paper concerning future plans and growth for the area taht will form party of the regional spatial strategy. There are links to a 55 page .pdf at http://www.westwiltshire.gov.uk/corestrategy.htm and can I encourage you to download and have a look - especially page 42 - and write in to ask for explicit rail mentions. Re: West Wilts Core Strategy for next 20 years - 5639/9942 Written by WyvusArconius on Thursday, 7th February 2008 Well.. at least they are using the words "melksham" and "improvement" in the same sentence. The fact that they are using "Melksham", "Station" AND "improvement" in the same sentence is very good indeed. All we need now is a rail service to run (reliably) through it! Wyvus Re: West Wilts Core Strategy for next 20 years - 5639/10249 Written by admin (Graham Ellis) on Wednesday, 20th February 2008 Partial reply to a local body looking for input for their report. I'll put a fuller, direct reply together over the weekend - further inputs welcome. [quote] "Melksham will be a thriving and accessible market town that respects its hetitage and rural environment while welcoming the expansion of local and inward investment from new high quality businesses. It will achieve balanced and mixed housing development appropriate to the existing town and its surroundings. This will be supported by accessible and improved leisure and recreational provision, increased healthcare and education facilities, canal related developements and IMPROVED AND INTEGRATED RAIL AND BUS LINKS TO SWINDON and neighbouring towns and villages. The Town Centre will benefit from new investment and will promote its riverside locations. Question 3. Do you have agree with the suggestions? Do you have any suggestions as to how we could improve them? [/quote] ANSWER. I agree with the suggestions - especially in the area of Rail and Bus links of which I have made a particular study. It should be noted that the railway through Melksham, and the station there, has already been identified by the Country Council as a strategic route in their local transport plan, so this fits in well. There is a golden opportunity to improve the rail service to Swindon from December 2008 - raising the number of trains from 2 per day each way to 3 times that, and full AND IMMEDIATE effort should be made to ensure this step is taken by all parties concerned. Also Question 2 - Trowbridge. The improved transport links should also mention Swindon. IIt was notable that housing experts talking of future development in Trowbridge and Westbury talked about the links to Swindon, Bath and Bristol (in that order) at a recent meeting we attended, and that the A350 corridor - from Trowbridge to Melksham and Chippenham - is mentioned elsewhere in this core strategy as key. That is the same corridor / route as Swindon. link to index of articles |
|||
Save the Train was the campaign to bring an approriate train service back to and through Melksham. Most big contributors are still around writing at the Coffee shop forum where new members are very welcome. The train has been saved - sort of - we have stepped back up from an unusable service to a poorish one but it's doing very well. We did that through setting up the TransWilts Community Rail Partnership. That fulfilled its early objectives; it has been taken over by local and regional government types who are now doing medium and long term work. The team from this forun can also be found at the Melksham Rail User Group (which was the Melksham Rail Development Group at the time these articles were written and we had no users. We mustn't loose sight, though, that the train service remains poor and needs our community support in marketing and campaigning to keep it going in a positive direction ... and all the more so when we're expecting to find a different normallity once we get out of the Coronavirus Pandemic and head for zero carbon via the climate crisis. Yes, it's saved ... it's now a key community facility ... the need for enhancement and the strong and near-universal local support remain, and the rail industry and goverment remain slow to move and provide the enhancements even to level us up with other towns. Please support the Melksham Rail User Group - now very much in partnership rather than protest with the rail industry and local government, including GWR, TransWilts and unitary and town councils. And please use the trains and buses, and cycle and walk when you can. -- Graham Ellis, (webmaster), February 2021 | |||
|
|||
Further Information:
Home
Current Summary
Daily update
User forum
Consultation
Service now
Service future
Future Analysis
Recent Statistics
Recent letters
Letter to DfT
Save the train
Presentation
Support us
Other Maps
Station facilities
Station approach
Pictures
Trains diverted
History
About Melksham
Site Map
About this site