As yet another year of campaigning for a station at Magor with Undy draws to an end, I’m sure many of you must be wondering if it will ever happen. Well, Ted Hand and I, and other members of the MAGOR committee, are now even more convinced that it will!
Just before Christmas Ted, Phil Inskip, and I were invited to a lunchtime meeting at the Celtic Manor with Simon Gibson, Chair of the Burns Delivery Board, (the group charged with delivering the 5 new stations on the South Wales Main Line). Simon, who was temporarily wheelchair-bound after a minor accident but was determined that the meeting should go ahead, had also invited David McCullum (Strategic Development Programme Manager and Rail Lead at Transport for Wales) and Catrin Maby (Cabinet Member for Climate Change and the Environment). Apart from it being a very enjoyable lunch, we had some interesting discussions on the challenges that the TfW design team are facing with the designs for stations and associated track modifications. We also talked about station access, ‘active travel’ and parking at stations (an area that some residents have concerns over). Most importantly though, we learnt that the design options are progressing well and a report on this is due in the spring. From a ‘Magor’ perspective, the original ‘staggered platform’ arrangement (identified in our GRIP 2 studies in 2016) may no longer be the preferred option. We will wait with interest to see what the final option is.
Our petition to the Senedd (previously reported) clearly helped to get the above meeting which included David from Transport for Wales and the forthcoming meeting with Rich Middleton (GWR) in January, so many thanks to all of you who signed it. I’ll give an update from the GWR meeting in due course.
Best wishes and a Happy New year all!
Paul
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