Campaigners call for improvements at Bridgwater rail station

The Celebration Mile will eventually run unbroken from Bridgwater railway station to the Northgate Docks, with Somerset Council about to begin the delivery of three key sections using £9m from the Bridgwater town deal.

The crucial final section, along the A372 St John’s Street, has no funding in place for upgrades at present and presents numerous challenges for delivering more space for pedestrians and cyclists.

Campaigners have called on the council to better promote the railway station, encouraging more people to use public transport and thereby potentially unlocking funding for the final improvements.

The council said it was looking at options to both address existing problems with the station’s bus interchange and delivering further improvements along the length of the road.

Retired Network Rail planner David Northey has been working with the Severnside Community Rail Partnership to promote Bridgwater railway station, encouraging more people to visit the town for business or leisure.

The community room that recently opened on the northbound platform can be hired out by companies or organisations for meetings, training or public events, bringing a sense of busyness to a station which remains underutilised.

Mr Northey said: “We have a community asset here that could be so important. We’ve raised more than £50,000 through various grants to have this room totally refurbished.

“We want it to be a great place for people in Bridgwater to come and use, whether it’s for a meeting,

“This is about breathing life back into Bridgwater station – so rather than people just coming here to catch a train and go off, they realise there’s something here.

“I want this to be the catalyst to find a use for all the other empty rooms at the station – maybe we can find someone to reopen the café, maybe someone could run a cycle hire business, or there could be drop-in offices.

“I want to make the whole station alive with people, so it makes it inviting – and that improves the security of the place as well.”

With the construction of Hinkley Point C well under way, the white buses associated with EDF’s park and ride services have become a common site on Bridgwater’s road network.

Mr Northey believes the council (and its county and district predecessors) missed a trick by not encouraging rail use during the construction programme – and thinks urgent improvements are needed at the bus interchange to encourage more people to use public transport across the town.

He said: “Rail has been treated as an afterthought. You still get quite a lot of people who arrive here by train, and then they get taxis to Hinkley Point C.

“We had £5m spent on building the bus interchange for the buses to come into the station, and we’ve never seen one bus. They can’t fit them in the car park – there’s a problem with the turning area.

“The infrastructure is there, and we’re now trying to find funding to get this up and funding – because you haven’t just got Hinkley now, you’ve got the gigafactory on our doorstep.

“When there were the initial discussions with Hinkley Point, they didn’t see the railway as playing a part – it got overlooked a bit.”

Improvements to the entrance of Bridgwater railway station were put in place by Great Western Railway (GWR) from May 2019, using funding from the county and district council along with contributions from EDF Energy.

Unfortunately, the current layout of the car park and mini-roundabout means that buses cannot properly turn into the station site to pick up passengers.

Conservative MP Ashley Fox and councillor Diogo Rodrigues. (Image: Bridgwater Conservatives)

Sir Ashley Fox, the newly-elected Conservative MP for Bridgwater, called for urgent action on the “poor design” of this interchange during the general election campaign.

Speaking in late-May, he said: “The inability of buses to stop at Bridgwater railway station undermines reliability and severely limits connectivity.

“It’s imperative that Somerset Council addresses this issue urgently to ensure efficient bus transport for local people.

“With the government’s support for buses, including the £2 fare cap extension, we have a prime opportunity to improve connectivity at Bridgwater railway station, and it’s crucial that we use this opportunity to its fullest potential by ensuring buses can stop directly at the station, facilitating convenient and affordable travel options for our residents.”

Numerous sections of the Celebration Mile have already been delivered through a range of funding sources, with the stretch from the Northgate Docks to Mount Street being put in place as part of the £16m Northgate Yard regeneration scheme delivered by Sedgemoor District Council.

The crucial junction of the A38 Broadway, the A372 St. John’s Street and Eastover was revamped in the summer of 2023 as part of Somerset Council’s ongoing upgrade of obsolete traffic signals across the county.

The town deal improvements, which get under way in mid-August, will see three sections delivered using £9m of central government grants, with improvements being made at Angel Crescent, Clare Street and Eastover.

The Town Bridge junction will also be upgraded, with improvements being made to East Quay, New Road and Salmon Parade, where the town’s new health and social care academy will be delivered using money from the government’s levelling up fund.

When it comes to St. John’s Street, the council has to contend with numerous issues which make designing any active travel scheme far from straightforward.

The road handles large volumes of traffic from the housing developments east of the station – with hundreds of more houses expected to be delivered near the M5 in the years ahead, most of which will rely on this road to reach the town centre.

Unless a one-way system is implemented along the length of the road, there is little scope for widening pavements or installing cycle lanes – and any one-way system would likely put further pressure on the neighbouring residential streets.

Somerset Council said it was exploring all the options to both fix the existing problems at the railway station interchange and to deliver the final section of the Celebration Mile.

A spokesman said: “We continue to seek new funding for the remaining St. John’s Street section, recognising that this remains a busy road.

“We are also seeking further investment and improvements at the railway station, including the opportunity to upgrade further to deliver a mobility/ travel hub.

“As part of this, we continue to look at any potential funding opportunities from new development and inward investment to the town.”