COUNCILLORS are to call on Rail Minister, Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill, to visit Wellington and to find out for himself how important it is for the town to have a new £15m railway station.

There are real fears that plans for Wellington to have a station, which looked on course to reach fruition, are set to be scuppered at the 11th hour under the new Labour Government’s financial strategy to scrap infrastructure projects across the country.

But councillors are determined not to allow the dream to fade away quite so easily and Wellington Town Council is to write to Lord Hendy asking him to visit and meet local people.

Town clerk Dave Farrow, speaking at the council’s meeting on Monday, September 2, said: “We thought it was all going ahead and now it’s up to debate as to whether it will happen.

“We were looking forward to moving things forward, but now we have all this uncertainty.”

Cllr Ross Henley said: “I’ve always been supportive of the railway station project and to get to the stage where we are starting to talk about details such as deciding on what hanging baskets to have on the platform, we are now hearing different messages about the project. It would be a shattering blow if this did not go-ahead.”

Cllr Marcus Barr said: “We were promised a railway station, but it’s now looking very bleak.”

Cllr Barr said the station project had been going on for eight years and that £6m had been ploughed into it from various agencies including the town council.

“Wellington’s the largest town in the South West on the Penzance to Paddington line without a railway station,” he said. “Great Western Railway has done its work and it knows a station in Wellington would make money.”

Cllr John Thorne said: “The station plans have been scuttled. There’s no ambiguity about this – it’s not going to happen.

“But we need to invite the Rail Minister to come down and see for himself and we should be able to speak to him.”

Cllr Thorne said the proposed station land should be ring-fenced so it could be used in the future if there was a “change of heart” over the project.

Cllr Sean Pringle-Kosikowsky suggested it may not be the best time for the station to proceed if there was such financial uncertainty in the country.

“Wellington does need a railway station, but perhaps now isn’t the right time,” he said. “Train tickets are so expensive and local people wouldn’t be able to afford them any way.

“But we don’t want a half-baked station. We could wait and make sure we do a proper job and have a station we can be proud of.”

It had been hoped that the station in the Longforth Farm area of Wellington would have been open in the spring/summer of 2026.

Now councillors want to have a meeting with the planning department at Somerset Council to safeguard the land in the event of it not going ahead just yet.