Wixams residents are one step closer to having their long-promised station after the Wixams Station Board recommended the project can proceed to the next planning stage.
Cllr Graeme Coombes (Wixams) wrote in the latest Wixams residents’ newsletter that the necessary funding has been secured and there is support, in principle, for a two-platform station.
“The [Wixams Station] Board then recommended that the project proceed to the next stage (Stage 2b), by commissioning design work specifically for a two-platform faced station,” said Cllr Coombes.
“The deadline should be met for obtaining the additional station funding from L&Q [the Wixams developer] who are still engaged with the project and keen for it to proceed.”
“The planned date for the opening of Wixams station is currently July 2024, around 11 years late,” he said. “Let’s hope the trains are more punctual.”
Also from that article:
A Borough Council spokesperson said: “The development of the Wixams Station has been years in the making but, with agreement from the rail industry now secured, a location and footprint agreed, funding is in place and construction is expected to begin in 2023.
“This progress has only been possible because the doubt over East West Rail plans was removed from Wixams last year.
“With the significant large-scale development already in place and committed in the area around the station it would very difficult to change this to become an interchange point on the East West Rail line.”
£13million of the funding for Wixams station is time-limited from the developer, L&Q.
The time frame would have run out before the station was built if it hadn’t been possible to move the plans forward over the last year.
“The proposed southern routes for East West Rail would have put the delivery of the Wixams Station in serious jeopardy, would have blocked the progress that has been made over the last year, and would result in millions of pounds of economic benefit bypassing our Borough.”
www.bedfordindependent.co.uk
