21st October 2021 - writing in progress. Please follow other links at top of page for more information This URL written at 07:45 and will be updated in coming hours.
A full room at the Bethesda Baptist Church Hall, Trowbridge, and as many people joining Zoom yesterday evening, heard Andrew Ardley of South Western Trains and Martin Pearce of the Department of Transport explain why the through trains from Bristol to London (Waterloo) are being withdrawn permanently in December. There was very real anger at the removal of the service, and at the way it is being done without any consultation, and without the provision of adequate alternative, to a very popular service. The service has been very well used and its loss will make a huge difference to many passengers and to the places it serves. Andrew Ardley explained that the decision was made by the Department for Transport and that it’s too late in the day to make any changes for this December. Chris Irwin of TravelWatch SouthWest challenged both the removal of the services and the way it is being done, with applause from the audience of local residents.
There re already 3,000 signatures on a petition asking that the service be continued through 2022 and properly consulted on and upgraded / modernised from major timetable changes planned in December 2022. The meeting encouraged further signature (there’s a link via
http://www.passenger.chat ) and everyone to write to their
MPs▸ and the Wiltshire Council Cabinet Member responsible, Dr Mark McLelland; informed speakers appreciate the support already received from the Wiltshire MPs and Dr McLelland, and area urging people to write to strengthen their hands as they help us battle the Department for Transport.
The petition is already the most-signed open petition in the South West Wilts Constituency (Dr Andrew Murrison for Trowbridge, Westbury, Dilton Marsh and Warminster Stations) and Chippenham Consitency (Bradford-on-Avon and Avoncliff stations) even though it has only been running for two weeks - with the number of signatories, were it to be duplicated across the
UK▸ , making it eligible for a debate five times over. In the Bath and in the North East Somerset seats (Wera Hobhouse and Jacob Rees-Mogg), for Bath Spa and Oldfield Park, and for Keynsham, signatories would also make It a candidate for a debate and in 14 other constituencies it has already passed the much lower “you will get a written response” hurdle,
The meeting heard that the decision to permanently withdraw the service is a financial one, looking to save money by ceasing to provide what Andrew Ardley described as “services that are duplicated by Great Western Railway”. He also told us of a driver shortage that has lead to them already being withdrawn on Saturdays (when they have been observed full and standing) and that it was too late in the day for public input through normal consultation input routes would be too late to save them. He admitted that there had been no opportunity for the public to make any input. He did tell us of an offer to MPs in the spring, prior to
SWRs» consultation for all other services across their area of South West London, Hampshire and the Exeter line , of a briefing. He told us that only a few had taken this up, probably because SWR had been unable to say what the briefing was to be about because of commercial confidentiality. A member of the audience compared this to Douglas Adam’s Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy, where a public notice was posted on the underside of a filing cabinet in a disused toilet.
Comment from various people present at the meeting pointed out that the way the Department for Transport, and South West Railways, have gone about the removal of this service lead the public to distrust them. A freedom of information request has turned up data that has confirmed that this service withdrawal was stitched up and infomed in such a way that inputs and proper review was suppressed, and delayed intentionally so that any analysis would only be received too late under rail industry standards to continue to run the service. Not only is a wait of between 49 and 59 minutes at Salisbury totally inappropriate to replace a through train, but a promise that it will be looked at to see if it can be improved at the end of 2022 was far too little, far too late, and far too untrustworthy to offer any form of compromise.
Click on the map to explore geographics
