MetroWest Event
27th March 2:00-5:30 pm

A Railway fit for Britain's future

Published 18 February 2025

Our country needs an efficient, modern railway that kickstarts growth and frees the untapped potential of our towns, cities, and businesses. An affordable, reliable railway brings new markets and job opportunities closer to those who stand ready to make the most of them. It makes education, healthcare, public services and even just the support of family and friends more accessible to those who need it. A railway that offers a genuine alternative to road travel, combined with a thriving rail freight sector, means cleaner air and less congestion for everyone.

Great British Railways (GBR)will unite track and train at a route level, with integrated management and joined up decision-making to support improved reliability, passenger and freight growth and cost savings. This will also make it more responsive to the needs of local areas. GBR will .. be set up to ensure the railway delivers for local users and communities, rather than focusing solely on the national level.

This will include working closely with devolved leaders and local partners, drawing on their experiences and expertise. But it is also vital that devolved governments and Mayoral Strategic Authorities (MSAs) can integrate local railways with other transport modes. They need the ability to create unified transport networks that serve their cities and regions, much like Transport for London.

Other tiers of local government in England will benefit from empowered local GBR business units that are outward-facing and engage local authorities on their priorities and Local Transport Plans. This will include working with sub-national transport bodies (STBs) on matters of wider regional interest.

This will bring decision-making as close as possible to local communities while recognising that – as a nationally integrated network – the railway’s governance must balance local, commuter, regional, national, international and high-speed services, as well as the role of freight.

Partnerships will range across a spectrum depending on the ambitions and institutional capability of partners, which will include engagement on strategic priorities, close collaboration on the delivery of rail elements of Local Transport Plans and opportunities for partners to invest in the railway.

Deeper local commissioning partnerships, where an MSA could take on service specification responsibilities and revenue risk, could also be agreed where financial devolution is in place.

See here for more information

Government goes further and faster on planning reform in bid for growth

Published 26 January 2025

Untapped land near commuter transport hubs will be unlocked to build new housing for working people, as part of bold new steps to reform the planning system and unlock growth to deliver win-win outcomes for the country and the economy. The bold reforms will create secure, high-paying jobs and deliver major infrastructure faster to bolster public services and lower bills.

In a major new growth push, the government will ensure that when developers submit an application for acceptable types of schemes in key areas – such as in high potential locations near commuter transport hubs - that the default answer to development is ‘yes’. This will unlock more housing at a greater density in areas central to local communities, boosting the government’s number one mission to grow the economy. These measures will transform communities, with more shops and homes nearer to the transport hubs that working people rely on day in day out.

As part of these measures, the government will streamline decisions on critical infrastructure projects by slashing red tape in the planning system which is holding up projects. That means looking again at the input from expert bodies who developers are required to consult - and replacing the current systems of environmental assessment to deliver a more effective and streamlined system that reduces costs and delays for developers, whilst still protecting the environment.

The government is also working with Greater Manchester to release growth-generating land around transport hubs through local development orders, such as around Castleton Station, with the potential for this innovative use of existing powers to kickstart building in these sites to be a blueprint for the rest of the country so that every corner of the UK benefits from growth.

The new proposals tackle the dire inheritance head on. Last year homebuilding fell below 200k and permissions reached their lowest for over a decade, which is why the government is taking radical action necessary to reverse this trend and deliver the homes necessary to reach 1.5 million homes over this Parliament.

See here for more information

At Network Rail Property, Putting Passengers First is at the centre of everything we do.

Firstly, it’s about collaboration. We need creative and determined collaboration from multi-disciplinary project teams across several organisations. This is not something that Network Rail can just do on their own.

Secondly, there is the business case. The Land Value Capture from developments is important but this only covers part of the costs. The Government’s Green Book business case process, and in particular the Economic and Commercial cases are  going to be key in delivering this and other Major Projects like it.

We at Network Rail Property are keen take a new approach in tackling these challenges. The solution requires input from those beyond the boundaries and borders of each local authority. We need to look to local partnerships and investment from third parties in the regions we operate.

Together, the Major Projects team have the tools, resources and the determination to make this transformation a reality.

See here for more information

The rural county of Wiltshire has a housing target of around 2,000 new homes per annum with most of these built (or proposed to be built) on greenfield sites in the countryside around Chippenham, Salisbury, Melksham, Trowbridge, Warminster and various small local towns and villages. The July 2024 consultation on the National Planning Policy Framework, which comes with an entirely new algorithm for calculating housing targets for each local planning authority, raises the target to 3,476 homes, a very large increase for the country. We believe that a better way of building new homes is possible, with new homes in more sustainable locations, at higher density and orientated around new and modern public transport. 

See here for more information

Imagine a world where trains glide seamlessly over tracks, powered by cutting-edge battery technology that not only cuts costs but also champions the environment. Welcome to the Core Valley Lines (CVL) in Wales, where we took on the monumental task of transforming CVL from an ageing network into a modern, electrified metro-style service. As an infrastructure provider, manager, and operator, we designed an innovative solution, are delivering it, and continue to manage and operate both new and existing assets daily. 

• Fast, frequent service: Four trains an hour providing a service with up to 15% faster journey times. 

• Innovative engineering: Pioneering a novel ‘smart electrification’. 

• Cost savings: Over £100 million savings by avoiding costly civil works. 

• Net Zero hero: Saving tonnes of carbon, paving the way for sustainable rail. 

• Social value: Creating 100s of new jobs and connecting  1.5 million people. 

See here for more information.

Geoff is director of public transport service planning for Transport for London, responsible for planning, development and justification of ideas to change service patterns and frequencies.  A part of this is to both catalyse house building in the first place and to react to usage changes as a result of the city’s evolution. An economist by background, he has thirty years’ experience in public transport having previously worked in various strategic, planning, policy, project, marketing, operational and general management roles. He lives near London and uses public transport more or less every day. TfL want to create a more reliable, better connected and larger public transport network across south London, Surrey and Kent. We think that we could make significant improvements, at relatively low capital cost, by making better use of the existing rail network.  

See here for more information.

David is the Director of Create Streets. He has a MEng from Oxford and was a pilot in the RAF before discovering a passion for creating sustainable places.  How changing transport modelling can create green growth, sustainable transport and beautiful streets and homes. Create Streets’ work on traffic modelling took one step further by investigating a real plan for a new housing extension to the market town of Chippenham that was based on a £75million large road scheme.  

See here fore more information.

Jon Sandford, Senior Manager Infrastructure, Master Development and Design, Homes England

Jon Sandford is a Chartered Engineer and Chartered Town Planner. Jon is a national lead in relation to infrastructure and transportation planning within the Master Development and Design Team – His role is to facilitate larges sites progressing though the planning system, liaise with stakeholders, and facilitate design quality in housing, associated master plans and infrastructure delivery for housing. One theme of his work is in exploring the application of the new “Vision and Validate / Decide and Provide” approach to planning for new development – as recently cited in the DfT’s Decarbonising Transport publication. 

See here for more information.

ConnectedCities draws its inspiration from Ebenezer Howard's Social Cities. It  integrates brownfield and greenfield development into a unified system based on public transport.

The vision is for compact, high quality, walkable developments focused around existing and new railway stations. Groups of settlements - some existing, some new - are linked using existing rail corridors and clustered around a 'hub town'. Together they form a ConnectedCity.  Chippenham and Trowbridge are potential hub towns in areas of high levels of housing demand with 75,000+ new population planned. They are both located on the proposed MetroWest Bath+Wiltshire.  

With MetroWest the two ConnectedCities could sustainably house up to 135,000.  

See here for more information.

GWR are working to build new stations across our network to help reconnect towns and communities with the railway. These stations will help support local economies, provide access to jobs, and education, boost tourism as well as support new housing developments. 

Already opened are: Okehampton (The Dartmoor Line); Reading Green Park; Marsh Barton; Portway Park & Ride; Ashley Down. 

In planning are seven more. 

See here for more information.

Making vital connections across Somerset and Wiltshire

Our proposal for 2025

The route that we plan to operate from the end of 2025 onwards – and which now has the approval of the rail regulator - is:

The core of the service is between Taunton and Westbury. This will see six or more trains a day, improving the service levels in growing market towns. They will also provide much needed connections for services to and from Yeovil, Salisbury and Exeter.

In addition, some services will be extended to Swindon; and we will also enhance travel up the Somerset coast with some extra trains between Taunton and Weston Super Mare.

To begin with, Go-op will use diesel rolling stock. But our members have asked us to find more sustainable ways to operate public transport. So we undertook an Innovate UK funded feasibility study proving that a nine-tonne battery can be added to surplus electric train sets to operate efficiently on non-electrified mainline routes – a solution known as an IPEMU.

Go-op hopes to pave the way for the electrification of routes where overhead line power delivery is either incomplete or absent, and impractical to install. It requires not only advanced battery technology on the train itself, but also lineside batteries to support rapid recharging. This electrification of stations may also allow for an expansion of electric car club services, and interchange on to electric buses, in the future.

GWR is seeking enhancements to services in the Westbury area and has asked Network Rail to convene a working group to study ways in which the timetable could be optimised to deliver improved customer benefit and network performance. Go-op has been invited to take part and introduce its proposed timetable so that any new services that do gain regulatory approval will be fully integrated into the new timetable and thoroughly tested for any adverse impacts on existing operations.

See here for more information.

• Forming a Steering Committee of Key Stakeholders

• Preparing a Strategic Outline Business Case to submit to the DfT

• Land Value Uplift study

Cllr Clewer writes:

I drifted into local government after being elected to Wiltshire Council (unexpectedly) in 2009. I have found the ability to shape the communities of Wiltshire, I hope for the better, to be extremely rewarding.

I have managed the re-development of Salisbury Market Place from a car park to a public space for events, markets and out door eating.

I have started a new Council House building program with 170 units delivered as I write and over a 1,000 more in the pipeline.

I have just approved a plan to upgrade the EPC rating of all the Wiltshire Council housing stock to at least a B rating. This will save some of our most vulnerable residents up to £600 on their energy bills.

I have put a plan in place to make Wiltshire Council as a corporate entity carbon neutral by 2030 and am now developing a climate and environment strategy for Wiltshire. 

See here for more details