Coronavirus has taken a massive toll on car parking patronage at stations in this area - I have posted pictures of Trowbridge and Bath Spa station car parks in another thread, and have further pictures at Swindon and Chippenham showing just the same thing.
No surprise, then, that the number at Melksham have been decimated too, except that a free car park with just a small notice saying "Rail Users Only" became a paid car park with that notice remaining in place but now supplemented by a plethora of notices about charging, and a pay machine. The effect (and there may be other triggers) is that the car park is underused and cars are parked on Station Approach in a way they were not in the past.
It is my undertstanding that the intent always was to allow people who were not or rail business to use the car park (for example to use the cafe and electric cycle hire that are being publicised and scheduled to open, as well as to visit other local businesses) - and indeed the "Rail Users Only" sign has now been removed.
A
post to the Melksham Rail User Group Facebook page (I am the author) offering people the information that they are now welcome to park off-road in the car park if they wish - even
Good News! The "Rail Users Only" restriction has been removed from the main car park at Melksham Station. This means that if you are visiting a business on Station Approach rather than travelling by train, you can now park there off road. The car park is run by Smart Parking for TransWilts who can be found online at
https://transwilts.org and the first 30 minutes of your stay is free. As a service to Melksham Station users, we (the Melksham Rail User Group) have a copy of the details on our web site at
http://www.mrug.org.uk/cptc.html ; questions, though, should be addressed to the car park operators.
The spaces in front of the station itself are now only available for (free) stays of up to 20 minutes for picking up or dropping off passengers. This is enforced by
APCOA▸ on behalf of Great Western Railway who lease the station from Network Rail.
Sheltered cycle parking spaces are available on the station platform; as in all locations, we suggest you lock your cycle if leaving it there. You are also welcome to take cycles on the train with you; no booking is necessary for this on the local trains that call at Melksham, and whilst there is in theory a limit to the number of cycles carried on any one train, this limit is rarely approached.
Trains call at Melksham all day ? from 05:33 in the morning to 21:10 in the evening, with a later start on Saturdays and Sundays. Do check with GWR or
http://melksh.am/trains for current departure schedules as the days are long but the trains are not as frequent as we would like.
Post raises concern
Such a shame that greed has lead us here. Free parking is what made many of us use the train in the first place. Once you add parking charges to the train ticket it'll be cheaper to drive 😢
There was nothing wrong with the previous station and the time and money could have been much better spent elsewhere.
and I will admit to sympathy with the view ... a 2.50 parking fee on top of a train ticket of perhaps 10.00 is a 25% rise in payment required (day return to Swindon) and for some will re-balance the case for train travel for some. Personally, it has encouraged me to take other and often greener and faster approaches to journeys out of Melksham, and leave the parking spaces for those who will wish to use them and not have alternatives in the future. Only one journey out of six to / from the town has been by train this week, where a year ago all six would probably have been by train; t
here are other issues and not just the car park that have turned me off rail for many of these journeys.
Answer from me to the poster above:
I have campaigned for improvements and use of Melksham Station for a number of years. The imposition of car parking charges is not something I celebrate, or had any part in setting up, but is sadly inevitable as passenger numbers grow. Where a station has just 3,000 journeys a year it is not worth the owners of the land that people park their cars on (Wiltshire Council) looking for an income from there asset. Their maths changes when numbers are at 75,000. Yes, it will loose some of the traffic we have worked so hard to build ... and I hate that. I can encourage people to be dropped off, walk or cycle to the station. I can ask for buses ro run to the station (but they will cost, and may be seen to reducing the number of cars parking). And on balance, that's the route we need to take; it does make some sense to charge for the least sustainable way to get to the station, and the cost of providing the parking.
Sorry about the length of the answer!
Others share a broadly parallel view:
If melksham station is ever going to progress or develop there has to be a degree of self sufficiency. One can't expect facilities to be there solely on the expense of one off grants, fare paying passenger and government subsidy to GWR ( appreciate this isn't quite the model now TOCs▸ are run as EMA but point still valid). I for one would not be against a small parking fee to up the status of the station area and get some more facilities there
Though the critical writer does not agree
What facilities does it need? It had a ticket machine, platform and a rain shelter. That's all I want in a station!
... a view which I don't really agree either. Good access to the residential area to the north, a bus service to the station, information system and poster improvement and a customer support person (in the cafe) at least at times of the busiest trains would be welcome, as would an increase up to an hourly service. And we are promised that the
CIC▸ will further their objectives along these lines with excess of income over expenditure on the car park / hub operation - it's a CIC and not a shareholder dividend driven company after all.
Facebook pages fade ... posting here as something of a record to which I can refer people when they ask me "why do I now have to pay to park".
