Major housing development underway near FGW station

[whole diary]

[grahame]

If every train stops at Dilton Marsh in the future ...

Now here's an interesting thought.  I was on Google Earth doin a little bit of research around Westbury and could see from the satellite image how the housing creeps every closer to Dilton Marsh village, with a big road running close to the station now and a housing construction site just beyond.   With extra housing in the area over the next 20 years (20,000 new homes in North and West Wilts), Dilton Marsh will be a suburban station by 2015.

Suburban to where?

Commuters to Bath and Bristol, to Swindon, to Trowbridge, and to Salisbury, I suspect. Lower numbers to Warminster, Reading, Newbury and perhaps London.   And on the current odd pattern of train services there, these commuters will be driving ... or driving to Westbury.  And yet - train speed through Dilton Marsh is NOT fast. So here's an idea for FGW^▸ (First Great Western) to consider.

From May, 2008 make Dilton Marsh a request stop for all trains passing through. You'll find that there's a dramatic increase in business there and you'll have a real publicity winner too. Won't cost you anything in terms of train timing ... there's plenty of recovery time in there, and you'll be able to save the Westbury - Warminster short workings.

At the same time (if you can / it's not too big a timetable change) add in extra links using the spare unit time from Westbury to / from Frome (if it fills gaps) or Chippenham (it is BOUND to fill gaps there as you're not currently running any day time serives on the line.

From December 2008, using other plans afoot provide a Salisbury / Westbury to Chippenham / Swindon service; yes, even more for Dilton Marsh - THE new commuter town where people will want to live with fast and frequent trains to Bath, Bristol, Swindon and Salisbury - and the return of a decent service to the transWilts.

Dear FGW, dear DfT^» (Department for Transport - about), dear WCC^▸ (Wiltshire County Council (until March 2009) - now Wiltshire Council), dear Passenger / Customer ...
... we all win win win win

[Lee]

Something along the lines of the link below, grahame?
http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=1407.msg8181#msg8181

[tramway]

It would seem that the Governments efforts to ^get people on their bikes^ away from the South East are finally coming home to roost in the West Wilts area.

Yes there are jobs down the M4 corridor but we are having to bear the brunt of the housing crisis as we are on the margins.

WWDC^» (West Wiltshire District Council - about)/WCC^▸ (Wiltshire County Council (until March 2009) - now Wiltshire Council) (Unitary will be looking forward compalints from our area I^m sure) are in a no win situation regarding house building but the DafT do not appear to have spoken to their colleagues about the consequences for public transport despite their aim^.

The Department works in partnership with both regional and local stakeholders towards the same shared priority of:
'Improving access to jobs and services, particularly for those most in need, in ways that are sustainable: improved public transport - reduced problems of congestion and reduced problems of congestion, pollution and safety.'
To find out more about what we do, read our 'Introduction to regional and local transport'.

Link

http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/regional/

Complete and utter B******s.