Trowbridge Area Board - "TransWilts CRP" agenda item

I attended the Trowbridge Area Board of Wiltshire Council on Thursday evening; the TransWilts Community Rail Partnership had requested a five minute slot on the program to:

1. Inform the Area Board and active community representatives in the town about the pending transport improvements, which we have identified [key flows] as improved education, commuter and leisure opportunities to Chippenham and Swindon, and better business access to London and Reading (double the number of trains in less than 2 hours; quickest Trowbridge services now shown in a main London timetable.

2. Reach into the community to ask them to help us identify other opportunities and to link together, as we are doing already in Swindon, Westbury and Melksham.

Sure enough, "TransWilts Community Rail Partnership" was an agenda headline item. Alas, under the headline was the detail which was a showing of the "Connecting Wiltshire" video - and important part of the whole LSTF^▸ program, but telling people about information improvements, and not the services and what they can do for Trowbridge. The handout sheet - copy attached - seems to imply that the train service improvement is Melksham only (on no it isn't!), and the speaker was a Wiltshire Council officer who answered questions (as laid out in the agenda) rather than casting Conencting Wiltshire / TransWilts CRP^▸ into a Trowbridge context.

I had an opportunity to question from the audience and - I'm learning - managed to make comment on the service benefits to Trwbridge from my seat; quite a number of folks came over after and became informed as a result. But no opportunity to identify others on a wider basis to whom to link. Pity ...

But is interesting to attend meetings whcih are really tuned to a different audience than yourself. I was fascinated to learn that "the thicker part of a million pounds" of the LSTF money is being spent on remodelling vehicle access to Trowbridge station. LSTF is about improvements right across the county, and about bringing some of the least usable facilities up to a useable standard; I hope that sufficient will be left in the pot after nearly a quarter of the grant has gone on this Trowbridge project to at least bring other facilities up to spec elsewhere in the county. And what was that comment that work needs to start before next March due to funding constratints on LSTF? Knowledgable feedback (by pm or email if necessary!) would be appreciated, as I don't feel well informed at present and so I'm perhaps more concerned than I should be.