Problems for planned £50m Llanwern station

TRANSPORT for Wales has uncovered problems in a £50m scheme for a new railway station which the Welsh Government commenced two years ago.

Ministers awarded the money in the capital budget for 2018-21 for construction of a new park-and-ride station at Llanwern, Newport, along with a 1,000-space car park and an electrified “stabling line” for holding trains during major events in Cardiff.

But managers at TfW, which is now helping with the scheme, are dissatisfied with the work done so far.

The problems are significant enough to trigger a declaration that in future TfW will undertake “detailed due diligence” before taking on projects which have been started by external organisations.

TfW’s board recently received an update on the Llanwern project. Board minutes redact details of the discussion, but say: “TfW has proposed to the Welsh Government a revision of the remit that still achieves the key aims.

“A re-baseline exercise will be undertaken upon completion of rescoping to determine the revised forecast programme and budget. This will be completed at the earliest opportunity in 2020.

“The board agreed that undertaking detailed due diligence and gateways on projects already in flight was imperative before agreeing to take them on.”

TfW declined to provide any further information.

A Welsh Government spokesman said: “Welsh Government and Cardiff Capital Region Regional Transport Authority developed the Metro Enhancement Framework to determine the corridors for future expansion of the Metro.

“As a result of this work, a strategic study of the Newport to Chepstow corridor has been commissioned.”

It is understood that the main current focus at Llanwern is on providing the 2.5-mile stabling line.

This was always planned to form Phase 1 of the scheme, with the station and car park in Phase 2.

The line would also be a test track, close to the CAF train factory.

One probable obstacle is the difficulty of providing a train service for Llanwern station.

According to an industry source, diverting existing services to call there is not viable because it would add 10 or more minutes to journey times between Newport and Severn Tunnel Junction.

This could undermine revenue by making the service less attractive to passengers travelling between major centres such as Bristol and Cardiff.

Last summer, the Western Mail revealed the UK Government had not given any assurances that trains in franchises which it controls would call at Llanwern.

The only service past Llanwern which comes under the devolved Wales and Borders franchise connects Cardiff to Chepstow and Cheltenham, but runs less than once per hour – probably too infrequently to entice M4 motorists to park and ride for the relatively short journey into Cardiff.

The industry source suggested that TfW would not have flagged up the need for a revised budget if the scheme was on course to cost only slightly more than the existing budget.

He said the new station would be beside the old steelworks sidings, accessed from the freight lines known as the “relief lines”.

For existing services to call at Llanwern, they would have to run for a number of miles on the relief lines, where the maximum speed is lower than on the usual passenger lines between Newport and the Severn Tunnel.

One possible option is to extend a future hourly Ebbw Vale to Newport train service to Llanwern.

This would serve commuters working in Newport and people who live in new housing at Llanwern, but commuters travelling to Cardiff or Bristol would face a change of train on their way to work and the way back.

Such an infrequent and indirect service would appear not to justify investment in a station with two platform faces at Llanwern or the planned 1,000 car parking spaces. This is almost five times as many parking spaces as at Caerphilly station, which has four trains per hour to Cardiff Queen Street and Cardiff Central, and four times as many as at Newport station.

Llanwern’s 1,000-space car park would be comparable with the 1,140 parking spaces at Bristol Parkway, which is served by many InterCity and local trains.

A separate proposal envisages hundreds of additional parking spaces at Severn Tunnel Junction station, accessed by an upgraded road from the former Second Severn Crossing toll plaza.

Grand Union Trains has offered to help fund the infrastructure as part of its plan to run trains between London Paddington and Cardiff, eventually extending to Llanelli.

However, this investment could further weaken the case for Llanwern park and ride, because many motorists would prefer Severn Tunnel Junction for its wide range of train services.