A BATTLE was underway this week to save the future of a new Wellington Railway Station on which work was expected to begin later this year.
The town was initially shocked on Monday (July 29) when Chancellor Rachel Reeves scrapped the Restoring Your Railways fund through which the £15 million cost of the station was being met.
Wellington Mayor Cllr Janet Lloyd said the town council was committed to helping to deliver the train station and community facilities to support it.
Cllr Lloyd said the council would do all it could to press the case with Ministers and would work closely with Wellington’s new Liberal Democrat MP Gideon Amos, who had pledged his backing.
Ms Reeves told Parliament the new Labour Government had found an unexpected £22 billion budget black hole and therefore needed to cut its spending plans.
She outlined a list of former Conservative commitments which were being axed, including the £85 million fund for railway re-openings.
However, the Chancellor said the future of individual projects within the programme would be reviewed on a case by case basis.
During the following debate Mr Amos then questioned the Chancellor and appeared to receive an assurance that the Wellington station would still go ahead.
Cllr Lloyd said initially ‘our immediate concern was that that was the end of the station project’.
But Cllr Lloyd said she was reassured by the assurance the Chancellor had given to Mr Amos.
Cllr Lloyd said: “Clearly, we will all want to see this backed up by action.
“We will continue to work with Somerset Council and Network Rail to do all that we can to support the station being delivered.
“It is an essential development to support the transport infrastructure of our growing town which will bring both economic and educational benefits.”
Work on replacing Wellington’s train station on a site close to the Longforth Farm housing estate was expected to start this autumn, with the first trains due to arrive in June, 2026.
Mr Amos used his first Parliamentary question to ask the Chancellor if projects would still go ahead such as Wellington, which had already received ‘governance for railway investment projects stage four’ approval.
Ms Reeves told Mr Amos: “I assure him that projects that have already started, such as the station he mentions, will go ahead.”
Mr Amos said later: “I was keen to use my first intervention in Parliament to challenge the Chancellor to confirm the new Wellington station project and it was good to get her assurance so early in the new Parliament that the new station will continue to go ahead.
“But I will not be leaving anything to chance.
“Having worked in my previous job to successfully deliver a new now fully-opened station, I am now not stopping until we have delivered the new station Wellington deserves.”
Wellington’s station closed 60 years ago this autumn in a programme of cuts which became known as ‘Beeching’s Axe’, named after the later-Lord Beeching review for the Labour Government.