Well, I have some experience of living in Langport.
Fine if you like an insular community with self serving local politicians. The Town Council recently resigned en masse after their shady dealings with the local funny handshake brigade were exposed. The council planned to sell one of Langport's iconic buildings, The Hanging Chapel, to the apron wearing gang, who are currently just tenants.
The Hanging Chapel, along with other buildings and land in Langport, are held by the charitable Langport Town Trust for the benefit and enjoyment of all town residents. The Chapel sale was rubber stamped by the Town Council (who act as trustees) without public consultation, or being put on the open market. This was against both the Trust's and Charity Commission's rules.
When publicly exposed by the lone Councillor who voted against the sale to the rolled up trousers troupe, the rest of the council resigned. But not before they'd threatened their whistle-blowing colleague with legal action.
The new town council are obviously unproven, but with it being a rather insular place I don't see radical change. I know one of the new councillors personally. A good friend to my stepfather, who helped immensely during his illness and death. She, though is very pro car. I doubt she'll be fighting hard to see Langport return to the passenger rail network.
In some respects Langport caught the Somerton disease. Up the road, in the capital of the Kingdom of Wessex, their town council also resigned en masse a few years ago. Again, dodgy back room deals that benefitted individuals rather than the community, with suspected masonic involvement. A bit more serious was this one. There were arrests for misconduct in public office. CPS didn't proceed though. The mass resignation even attracted the attention of
BBC» Newsnight, with Michael Crick interviewing the indignant and unrepentant Councillors. They'd been exposed by a local blogger and were most upset that their dodgy deals were laid bare for all to read about. Said blogger, a local resident, was threatened with legal action, was on the receiving end of thinly veiled threats, and subject to acts of criminal damage to his property and vehicles.
It's a strange little corner of Somerset. Nice enough folk, but be very wary of the local politicians.
As for a station site. Both towns deserve reconnecting to the rail network. My preference would be a Parkway style station between the two. With a proper linking bus service. Such a station could have a wider catchment and the build be less disruptive than a site in either town. My belief though is no plan will ever get off the ground.
So, if you move to the area, FT,N, get used to the drive to Castle Cary, Yeovil or Taunton for trains. Taunton, whilst having the best train service of the three is the worst to get to by road. No avoiding the A358 through Henlade, Somerset's worst major route bottleneck. Plans are afoot to improve the A358 by dualling and bypassing Henlade, but that's at least 7 years away and could be never. The easiest drive is that to Castle Cary. That's what I was doing after passing my test and before moving away.
Oh, and the bus service is terrible. Expensive, unreliable, old vehicles, and nothing in the evenings or on Sundays. It was marginally better when there was competition from WebberBus, but they went t*ts up in mid 2016.
And another 'Oh'. Langport's Tesco is the place to go If you like your car doors dinged and wing mirrors broken. With a large rural catchment you get a lot of 4x4s whose owners seem incapable of parking.
Not really selling the area as a place to live am I?
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