St Anne’s station bid When I stood for election in January this year, better public transport for the people of St Anne’s and the wider Brislington area was a key theme of my campaign. I had a lot of ideas on how things could be improved and, once elected, I set about trying to achieve as much as I could in the short time available to me before the scheduled elections in May 2020.
There is one piece of good news however. A part of my campaign was the promise to keep up the pressure on WECA, our West of England Combined Authority, to develop plans for the re-instatement of a railway station at St Anne’s Park. I am very pleased to announce that this week myself and our local MP for Bristol East, Kerry McCarthy, have submitted a first stage application to the government under their “Restoring Your Railway” programme to look at the feasibility of building a new station (the old one is long gone). If we are successful, the government will provide a grant of 75% of the costs for a full feasibility study to be carried out.
Sadly, a lot has happened since then, and very little of it good! The ferry service which I helped to organise between Netham Lock and the Centre has had to be cancelled indefinitely. The re-organisation of the 513/514 bus service which I persuaded the Council to undertake has also been put on hold. The future of public transport is a big unknown right now.
20
This is only the first stage. We know that St Anne’s part of the long-term ambitions for WECA but we want to bring that forward and make it a priority. If we succeed in this phase, there will be a full application process to be completed by the end of June, so the timescales are really tight, but we will do everything we can to try to bring this about for the people of Brislington, who are desperate for improved transport links at this time. By Tim Rippington, Local Councillor Candidate (Brislington East)
