TransWilts Community Rail Partnership Update

[whole diary]

[Lee]

Hope you are all well 

I've been busy helping to co-ordinate TransWilts Community Rail Partnership activities, and I thought you might like an update.

The list below gives you an idea of our recent activities. Special thanks go to everybody involved in helping to make it possible:

SALISBURY - TWCRP^» (TransWilts Community Rail Partnership - about) introduced at Salisbury City Community Area Partnership AGM^▸ (Annual General Meeting).

WARMINSTER - Joint TWCRP/Wiltshire Council Dilton Marsh Rail Timetable Leaflet available from station.

DILTON MARSH - Timetable leaflet delivered to all households and available from local businesses. Very positive feedback received.

- Artwork for the station being produced by Westbury Leigh Primary School.

- FGW^▸ (First Great Western) offer improved southbound morning peak service towards Warminster and Salisbury if demand can be proved. Initial passenger counts since leaflet drop show encouraging usage increase. A survey is also planned.

WESTBURY - Joint station adoption plan agreed with Heart of Wessex CRP^▸ (Community Rail Partnership) and FGW. This will focus on the following areas:

Planters / hanging baskets / flower beds on the platforms

Murals on the cleaner's store / kiosk

Waiting room adoption

Community Rail Partnership posters in entrance

Flower bed / rockery / scrubland outside the station

- Dilton Marsh Rail Timetable Leaflet available from station.

- Community Area Transport Group (CATG) to be set up with likely TWCRP participation.

TROWBRIDGE - New help points being installed by FGW.

MELKSHAM - Melksham Climate Friendly Group to formally adopt station, and replant the floral displays.

- Improvements to signage and information boards being negotiated. Preparatory work for footpath/cycle way from Spencers Gate also being discussed.

- New help point being installed by FGW.

- Improved Saturday morning connection from Salisbury/Warminster at Westbury towards Melksham/Chippenham/Swindon secured in current timetable, safeguarding excellent overall journey time.

CHIPPENHAM - TWCRP introduced at Chippenham Area Board meeting.

SWINDON - Very positive meeting between TWCRP and Swindon Borough Council regarding future co-operation, particularly regarding station forecourt revamp plans.

GENERAL

- Co-ordination with Friends of Suburban Bristol Railways, Transport for Greater Bristol and West of England Partnership will continue regarding Greater Bristol Metro plans, whilst keeping all other future service options open.

- Following negotiations with FGW, from December 2010 the 1702 Worcester Foregate Street-Southampton Central service will run one minute later from Westbury - ie depart at 1941 rather than 1940.

This will create an official connection out of the 1936 arrival from the Bristol/Bath direction at Westbury, and in turn create an extra evening peak journey opportunity from stations such as Bristol and Bath to Dilton Marsh, Warminster, Salisbury, Romsey and Southampton Central.

- TWCRP formally invited to contribute to the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about)'s Rail Value For Money Review and Future Of Rail Franchising Policy Consultation.

[Chris from Nailsea]

Thanks, Lee! 

To add some more detail to the Westbury Station adoption ideas:

Two members of the TransWilts Community Rail Partnership (TWCRP^» (TransWilts Community Rail Partnership - about)) - Dominic McKeown and I - met up recently at Westbury Station with Pete Jobson (FGW^▸ (First Great Western) Station Manager) and Catherine Phillips and John Hill from the Heart of Wessex Rail Partnership.

The agenda for our meeting was to investigate how the newly formed TWCRP could hopefully work with the well established Heart of Wessex group, in improving the ambience of Westbury Station - as well as publicising our respective partnerships! - by 'adopting' the station, and working with FGW to enhance it.

We went on a 'guided tour' of the station, with Pete Jobson offering his comments as to how our respective CRPs^▸ (Community Rail Partnership) could become involved in enhancements to the station environs.

1.  Planters / hanging baskets / flower beds on the platforms

Hanging baskets are out of the question, apparently, due to 'health and safety' rules - and, to be fair, as I also pointed out, they are also rather impractical, due to their need for constant watering - much too 'high maintenance' for our purposes. However, there are already planters on the platforms ... well, actually there are some plant pots, on platform 2/3:



Pete Jobson is quite happy for us to enhance this sort of floral display - even to the extent of considering the installation of several much larger flower beds, like the ones at Parson Street, which I described thus -



- provided they do not give off muddy water flows across the platform, when it rains, for example.  As I explained, my understanding is that these raised beds consist of railway sleeper type surrounds, with a rubber membrane lining which does not allow leakage of the soil, and that they are thus generally self-sustaining.  On this basis, Pete Jobson was happy that we could pursue this enhancement in due course: however, due to the capital commitment required to build several of these beds on the platforms, it was acknowledged that this may be a 'medium term' aspiration.

2.  Murals on the cleaner's store / kiosk

The CIS^▸ (Customer Information System) screens are due to be repositioned, in August, from their present location on the wall on platform 3 here:



to a more obvious position, just under the central canopy, here:



where they will be seen by most passengers disembarking onto platforms 2 and 3.  I suggested the possibility of members of our CRPs repainting the 'kiosk' below the new screen location in a suitable dark green colour, and adding silhouettes of the heads of local school children - like this example (from Nailsea & Backwell):



... with a notice, explaining that such artwork was done by such-and-such local school, with the support of our two CRPs.  Pete Jobson was very happy with this idea - the 'kiosk' is presently just a store for cleaning materials, and each side of it seems to have been painted a different colour in the past: I think this would be a very 'quick win' for us on the CRPs, as we could make a very apparent difference to the appearance of the cabin, which would be immediately noticeable to anyone getting off trains on platforms 2 or 3 and heading towards the station buildings. With the notice explaining that this enhancement was due to the involvement of the two CRPs, that would generate excellent positive publicity, I think.

3.  Community Rail Partnership posters in entrance

There is an existing poster frame on the wall outside the entrance which we agreed, after some discussion, could be given over to the CRPs.  Many thanks to Pete Jobson, who was quite happy that we could 'adopt' one of the large posters (just to the left of the main entrance to the station) for a joint 'advert' for the two CRPs.

4.  Flower bed / rockery / scrubland outside the station

This is indeed a bit of an eyesore:



This is perhaps the best opportunity for us to make an immediate impact, as CRPs, on Westbury Station.  Pete Jobson is quite happy for us to strip out all the undergrowth on this slope, and replace it with something like the floral / painted stone display at Oldfield Park (thanks to Dominic for that excellent suggestion!).  We discussed the logistics of the 'landscaping' of the embankment at Westbury: it may be that FGW could get a local contractor in, to do a basic clearance job, or even that we could get the probation service involved - but that will need to be investigated, with further details to follow.

I hope this explains what we discussed, but any comments, questions or indeed offers of assistance to complete these works will be very welcome!

Chris.

[JayMac]

Chris,

Re: Possible participation of Probation Service (NPS^▸ (National Passenger Survey)). Most probation areas now allow nominations for projects for Community Payback. For Wiltshire you may find this link helpful.

http://www.wiltshireprobation.org.uk/community/index.php

From experience working with offenders here in Bristol I know there are a lot of hurdles to overcome for the NPS to approve Community Payback schemes, but there's no harm in trying!!

[Chris from Nailsea]

Thanks very much for that input, bignosemac!

I'll pass that information on to our Westbury Station team in the TransWilts Community Rail Partnership, if that's alright with you?

C. 

[Chris from Nailsea]

On Friday 30 July, Lee and I represented the TransWilts Community Rail Partnership at the quarterly meeting of the Heart of Wessex Community Rail Working Party, at the Great Western Inn, Yeovil Pen Mill.  The main part of their meeting was a ^station by station^ update from various local groups, as an overview of the Heart of Wessex Line - on which I^ve reported elsewhere, at http://www.savethetrain.org.uk/forum/index.php?topic=8245.

However, when it came to the particular sections of these lines where our interests overlap, so to speak, Lee and I were invited to update the meeting on our joint areas of interest. I was invited to give the meeting an update on the proposed ^Westbury Station adoption project^ of our joint venture.

Firstly, I explained our proposals for the installation of flower beds / planters on the wide expanse of tarmac between platforms 2 and 3.  I then gave a brief summary of the idea of repainting the ^cleaner^s cabin^, just under the end of the canopy where the CIS^▸ (Customer Information System) screen will soon be re-installed, and the possibility of adding artwork from a local school to the side of the cabin facing disembarking passengers.

I then mentioned the possibility of our ^sponsoring^ the recently redecorated waiting room on platform 1, but I emphasized that this may need to be a more long-term aspiration.  The possibility of reinstalling of some previous school artwork there was discussed, but it appears that this is no longer available.

We then moved on to the subject of the area of scrubland outside the station entrance ^ to the right, as you approach the building.  The general agreement of the meeting was that this is indeed an eyesore, and there was much interest in our proposals that the area be cleared of undergrowth, and flowerbeds / a rockery / a painted stone display outlining the 'Westbury' station name (as at Oldfield Park, for example) should be put there instead.

However, I then mentioned that I had made preliminary enquiries of the local probation service (or ^community payback^, as they are now known) for possible assistance with this work ... and certain concerns were then raised.  The Heart of Wessex and the FGW^▸ (First Great Western) station staff present at the meeting expressed some reservations / concerns about the use of ^community payback^ personnel, in the context of working on railway land.

After some discussion, we agreed that FGW would instead investigate the cost of employing a local commercial contractor to do the clearance, in preference to pursuing the ^community payback^ option, at this stage.  I^m quite happy with that, actually; if FGW / Network Rail / Heart of Wessex between them can deal with any reasonable costs of employing a local contractor to just get the clearance done soon, that^s absolutely fine with me.  (For the record: TransWilts CRP^▸ (Community Rail Partnership) have no funding whatever, at this stage ^ we are all entirely individual volunteers).

I then moved on to my final proposal for the adoption of Westbury Station ^ the use of a full size railway noticeboard for the display of a poster advertising our joint involvement, to the left of the building entrance.  However, this also caused much sucking in of breath and rolling of eyes from the FGW station staff present.  Apparently, Pete Jobson may have been a little over-generous, in blithely offering us the use of one of the existing three full-size display panels outside the station: they are in fact needed for various statutory notices, and other third-party posters, which are managed externally and are not negotiable.

However, after further discussion, it was agreed that Catherine and I would continue with our preparation of a suitable poster nevertheless, and we^d see about the possibility of adding a suitable display panel for it - elsewhere than on the frontage of the station building, if necessary!  In fact, it was suggested that a suitably weatherproof display panel could perhaps be included within the area of the newly refurbished embankment ^ as a direct example of the work carried out by the two partnerships, in our joint adoption of Westbury Station.  Again, I^m happy with this outcome.

That^s it, so far as the Westbury Station adoption project was concerned: I had a chat with Catherine after the meeting, and we agreed to exchange e-mails with draft artwork and proofs of a suitable poster / display.

All in all, it was a very positive meeting: I now have revised contact details for the relevant members of FGW station staff (Glyn and Jo), so I^ll press on ^ and report further developments here, in due course!

Chris.

[JayMac]

Chris, I'd be interested to know what 'certain concerns' were raised regarding the use of people on 'Community Payback'. Were they understandable general prejudices about employing convicted offenders, or were there other specific points raised aside from having them work on 'railway land'? As I understand it, the area under consideration for renovation is away from the operational areas of the station. Community Payback offenders are supervised and with a little encouragement and interaction they can do great work.

Still, if FGW^▸ (First Great Western) can rustle up the money for ground clearance then that's a good avenue to persue. I fear though, that in the present financial climate, this may be unlikely.

Another avenue you may wish to explore is the Prince's Trust Volunteers. Part of their initial 12 week Team Programme sees them undertake a project based in the local community.

I remain primed to offer my services as well, as long as the weather isn't inclement!

[Chris from Nailsea]

Thanks, Mac!

Firstly: at no point did anyone raise any concerns about the ^(ahem) criminal backgrounds of anyone involved - honestly!

Their concerns were more to do with practicalities, such as:

- the need for a separate 'risk assessment' to be carried out, to satisfy Network Rail requirements for anyone working on railway land (whereas existing Network Rail staff and contractors already have this)

- a 'competent person' having to supervise such individuals all the time (particularly when they would be working quite close to the railway, on Network Rail land);

- the practicality of getting someone suitably 'qualified' to 'sign off' the standard of work having been done to a specified standard.

While that all seems very negative, I did have some sympathy with the FGW^▸ (First Great Western) station staff: if they have a certain budget available, and an existing local contractor who has already been checked out, so to speak - they'd clearly rather use them than start all over again with 'community payback'.

To be honest, after listening to the debate in that meeting, I came to the same conclusion.  Nothing personal - just being practical.

However: your own offer of help is very much appreciated - and we have plans to utilise that!

Chris.