Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
New entrance plan in station upgrade
Exclusive
Transport chiefs are pricing up costs of a radical upgrade of Canterbury West Station, the Gazette can reveal.
Ambitious plans to bridge the tracks and allow passengers in from Roper Road are “not impossible but can’t happen overnight”, Network Rail conceded last week.
And bosses have now held faceto-face talks with council leaders to discuss solutions to chronic congestion in the area – particularly at the St Dunstan’s level crossing.
Top of the agenda was a potential access point to the station from the north of the tracks, allowing thousands of commuters to avoid the level crossing and Station Road West.
Council leader Simon Cook says officers are now looking at the cost of such a scheme with a view to furthering talks with Network Rail.
Their “encouraging” meeting followed a report in this newspaper that the rail operator was accused by the council of repeatedly ignoring its calls to get together.
Describing discussions so far as “broad brush”, Mr Cook says officers will meet in due course to look at costs and technicalities of a new access point.
“They’re actually talking to us now, which is a big step forward,” he said. “We have some clarity. There are technical issues around it – there’s a bit of railway line in the way.
“Unless they change that it won’t be ground level. So a solution may involve a bridge.
“I don’t know how much that would cost. That’s one of the things officers will want to discuss.”
Last month the council signed off on setting aside £5m to convert the 141-space public car park in Station Road West into a twodeck multi-storey.
While welcoming the plans, some members raised concerns over increasing strain on the level crossing area in St Dunstan’s, which is already routinely gridlocked.
Chief executive Colin Carmichael had said various attempts at contacting the operator to look at solutions had so far been snubbed.
“Network Rail are infamously difficult to do business with,” he said.
“Even our member of parliament has been unable to make progress in getting Network Rail to the table.
“The idea of a crossing across the line is another of the issues that we want to try to raise.”
Network Rail owns two key parcels of land in Roper Road, running parallel to the station and separated by a line of track.
One is the site of former car sellers, Kent Cars of Canterbury Ltd.
The other accommodates a rail depot, which sits directly in line with the footbridge and could provide an entrance should the footbridge be extended in its current form.
Documents lodged with the city council in January show that the national rail operator is suggesting the former car lot would be suitable for housing.
Following publication of our story two weeks ago, the opera- tor has come forward to say it had always been open about its intentions.
Spokesman Chris Denham said: “Should our land at Roper Road be allocated for housing then people will be able to have their say. Selling the land would not preclude a new entrance to the station from the north, although that faces some significant challenges of its own.
“These include the issue that the road is cut off from the station by a railway line, used by the many special trains that serve Canterbury.
“In addition there is a control room in the way of an extension to the footbridge, which cannot be moved easily.”
Mr Cook says that funding will be the key issue, with Network Rail unlikely to be willing to contribute.
“What’s important is that Network Rail has an open mind,” he said. “They could have come to us and said ‘no, it isn’t possible’. They haven’t done that.”