Clash over Kenilworth station’s opening date
Warwickshire County Council has dismissed a claim made by one of its councillors that the opening of Kenilworth station could be delayed for a third time.
The £13.6 million station between Coventry and Leamington Spa is officially due to open on December 10. It is understood that an hourly service operated by West Midlands Trains will serve Kenilworth once WMT takes over the franchise on that day.
However, Councillor Keith Kondakor said at a recent WCC Overview and Scrutiny Committee meeting that this was “severely in doubt”. Kondakor explained that agreement had not yet been reached between train operators and the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) on the provisional timetable.
RAIL understands that the dispute centres on possible implications to CrossCountry’s hourly Bournemouth-Manchester Piccadilly service, which also uses the single-track route between Coventry and Leamington Spa.
Kondakor said: “I believe there are issues over the timetable and getting access to slots on the network, which will result in potentially not having a service starting on December 10 as planned.”
However, a WCC spokesman told RAIL: “Everyone at Warwickshire County Council is working to ensure the station is completed by December 10.”
The ORR confirmed to RAIL that questions had been raised by parties involved over the provisional timetable, but that these were “perfectly normal” and that it was very much “business as usual”. It said it did not anticipate any delays in opening the station.
The town’s former station on the site closed to passengers in 1965, before being demolished and the line singled. In June 2013, £5m funding was approved for the new station from the Government’s New Stations Fund with the county council to provide the remainder.
Opening dates in December 2016 and August 2017 were both pushed back following delays to trackwork and signalling by Network Rail, which has also made provision for a second platform to be built should the track be redoubled.