Melksham Transport UsersTo trains • To buses • other linksTo taxis • To cycling and walking "A time of grest risk and great opportunity" - group news |
In the headline I write that this is a time of great risk an great opportunity. It's also the time for the Melksham Transport User Group and Option 24/7 to re-awaken after a strategic pause to recover from campaign fatigue and partner with others to encourage, promote and help facilitate a public transport network for the future.
We have had successes over the years which we often forget in because excellent public transport provision is still a goal and indeed a holy grail - we are mid-journey
In 2013, we stepped up from 2 trains each way per day calling at Melksham to 8, and passenger journeys rose from 3,000 to 75,000 per annum (and to 240,000 if you included journeys through Melksham.
In 2016, we successfully opposed Wiltshire Council plans to cut 50% of the supported buses - vocally answering a consultation as to whether we would prefer to lose town buses or rural ones, Sunday buses or evening ones with Option 24/7 - we belive that buses should run where people need them, and when then need them.
In 2020, when First Bus withdrew their commercial servics from Melksham, we sucessfully promoted their replacement providing an evening and Sunday service run by Faresaver and supported by Wiltshire Council.
Also in 2020, we fought the permanent withdrawl of Sunday trains - the morning service was at particular risk - and it came back post-covid
In 2022 and 2023 we nagged, persuaded the train service providers to fill evening timetable gaps and we now have evening trains seven days a week.
And in 2024 we saw the return of Sunday buses to Trowbridge and Chippenham, and on 1st September the Sunday service to Devizes and to Bath doubles to an hourly service.
Wow!! Just imagine how we would be without those various improvements. All of them are good improvements that were fully justified and have paid off, and once explained we have been pushing on open doors and working well together. But ...
* We have lost some requests too, and with it seen some backward steps
* We are in a process of review and policy change with a new government
* There is a very great deal still to go to have a system fit for future needs
Writing to continue ...(this is draft)
Footnote - what have we lost from Melksham?
* Second Town Bus
* Evening buses from Chippenham and Trowbridge
* Melksham Rail Link bus
* First Bus
* Santa trips
* Train reliability (if we ever had it)
And we need to look and learn at each of those - not simply target re-instament but rather looking to the future with what is needed for the future. Of the six, three "returns" suggested. Wider, losses include trains Trowbridge to Brighton and Londo, but lots of reallygood gains
What are the opportunities
* Reliable train services
* Clockface train including capacity works
* Bues to the station doubling up as second bus to serve dropped and new areas
* Porous and more friendly ststion and access
* Encouraging fares systems
* Real time at town centre bus stops
* Improved community inputs and ownership
* Better help if things don't work as they should
What are the risks
* Bus fare up 300%
* Loss of evening and sunday bus services
* Thinned and still unrelaibke trains and a shrinking network
* Reduction of train services at Melksham
Our mission is to maintain and enhance facilities at Melksham station and to act as an independent voice of the station users. This is augmented now by similar objectives for Melksham bus services.
Melksham is served by up to 18 trains a day on the line from Swindon to Westbury via Chippenham and Trowbridge.
Melksham Railway Station was closed in “the Beeching Era” - 1966. It re-opened in 1985, with British Rail, local councils and passengers partnering to bring back at least a part of the facility that had been so missed in the area.
The Melksham Railway Development Group (MRDG) was a community group that has worked hard over the years to support the station, though sometimes when the service was so poor it looked like it was lost again, and indeed if it weren’t for MRDG, Melksham might not have a station or train service today. Seven years ago, MRDG working with the TransWilts Community Rail Partnership, persuaded Wiltshire Council to sponsor, the Department for Transport to fund and GWR to run a three year trial of addition trains, and they have been very successful – for the first time since its re-opening, Melksham now has sufficient trains for passenger numbers to have grown well, and although the group is still very much concerned with further development, it was renamed the Melksham Rail User Group (MRUG).
MRUG has since evolved to look at transport in the town more generally and has become the Melksham Transport User Group (MTUG) in 2021. MTUG runs on a small budget kindly funded by Melksham Town Council and Melksham Without Parish Councils, and our membership includes representatives of both organisations. Events such as the Santa trips are costed to break even - their main intent is to publicise and promote the station and trains that serve it; any profit made is ploughed back into group funds. All work done for "MTUG" by the members is on a voluntary basis, for which the group is grateful.
The Group is also a member of the TransWilts Community Rail Partnership, supporting the use and growth of local and regional passenger train services on the Swindon to Westbury line via Chippenham, Melksham and Trowbridge, with service on to Dilton Marsh, Warminster and Salisbury. The Group is also a 'friend' of the Community Rail Network (formerly known as The Association of Community Rail Partnerships -ACoRP).
A new approach