Great Western Coffee Shop

Chair’s Report

I am finalising this report in the most challenging environment we have experienced in a lifetime. Fighting Coronavirus has temporarily displaced Brexit and Climate Emergency as the national priority.

We have had to cancel our AGM, Members Meeting and Stakeholder meetings. In the interim I hope this Annual Report will serve as a useful reminder and record of TransWilts activities in financial year 1st February 2019 to 31st January 2020.

It is amazing how quickly a year goes by and how much has been achieved. It has been a year of significant milestones, progress and some frustration. But we enter another year with a stronger and wider community rail partnership plus some exciting plans for 2020/2021. You will have noticed we display the Community Rail Accreditation logo which we were proud to achieve in 2019 and replaces the previous TransWilts Line Designation recognition.

[snip]

Our railway operators are responding to falling passenger numbers. The good news we have just received is that GWR have negotiated a Direct Award for three years with an option for a further year. This should give community rail funding stability until April 2023 and whilst we do not yet know exactly what is in the award, we can expect that community engagement will become increasingly important in the months to come.

Typically, our rail passengers have 25% of the CO2 emissions compared to a car driver. We have discussed with GWR how to improve the service reliability and to market a reliable TransWilts service. This is our priority for action next year.

The major project we are delivering in 2020 is Melksham Station Café Hub [snip]

A significant milestone in 2020 will be the completion of a refurbishment project for a Community Rail Office and meeting room on Westbury Station Platform 1 [snip]

As planned, we invested in an improved web site in 2019, which has a number of operating advantages as well as refreshing the image. As with most IT projects it had its challenges, but is now operating well.

Our volunteers completed two surveys for GWR in 2019 at Chippenham and Swindon Stations [snip]

I am most grateful for our Board’s advice, enthusiasm and support, whilst accepting and structuring the Melksham project risk to enable the scheme to progress. [snip]

The Board approved registration for VAT from October 2019. We are delighted to welcome two new Board members [snip]

Paul Johnson - Chair

Hard copies of the annual report should be dropping through members' letterboxes this week.

Hard copies of the annual report should be dropping through members' letterboxes this week.