Parkway station is not a smart option

In City View last week, Prof Richard Scase argued that it was time to resurrect the 1980s scheme for a parkway station outside Canterbury (Time To Face Up To Need For Extra Station, City View, Letters and Opinion, Kentish Gazette, August 25).

However, Kent County Council’s feasibility study in 2004 estimated the cost of this at £40 million-£50 million, concluding there was no business case for it and funds would be better spent on improving existing stations.

So it is surprising that Prof Scase described the cost of an access to Canterbury West station from Roper Road as “excessive”, since the necessary bridge extension should cost no more than the existing station footbridge, which cost £541,000 in 2010.

So the Roper Road access has a far greater chance of being funded than a parkway station.

The Roper Road proposal is not just about access to parking at the station, important though that is.

The ability to enter the station from the north would also encourage more people to walk and cycle to the station by cutting quarter of a mile off the walk to the station in each direction.

Prof Scase’s own university’s new draft masterplan aims to create a new shared pedestrian and cycle route from the University of Kent to the north side of the station via Roper Road, bypassing the sub-standard and rather unpleasant St Stephen’s Footpath tunnel under the railway.

And the ability for cars and taxis to drop off and pick up train passengers all day long in Roper Road would remove far more than the 60 to 70 journeys a day that he mentions from the level crossing, and this is why it would reduce queueing and improve air quality in St Dunstan’s Street.

The need for an access from Roper Road was re-emphasised when the level crossing barriers stuck down for six hours on August 21, causing long queues, as you reported last week.

I imagine some people will have missed their trains as a result of this and others will have driven the extra mile to reach the station by another route.

A second access would provide some resilience.

Therefore, it is imperative that the Roper Road access proposal is not dropped in favour of vague hopes of a vastly more expensive parkway station in the distant future.

Residents of the roads Prof Scase mentions have no need to worry about rail travellers adding to car-parking congestion since non-residents can only park for two or four hours – not long enough for rail travellers.

But to minimise cars and taxis dropping off and waiting in Roper Road itself, as well as to provide space for cycle and car-parking, it is imperative to secure Network Rail’s former car sales site in Roper Road for the station access.

To allow housing on this site would be incredibly short-sighted as scope to provide adequate space for an off-road access would be lost forever. Jeremy Baker, Fir Tree Close, Rough Common, Canterbury

Having lived in Coppergate, just off Roper Road, for 20 years before my recent move to Ramsgate, I totally agree with Prof Richard Scase.

A Roper Road entrance to Canterbury West station would cause chaos in nearby streets, including St Dunstan’s.

Prof Scase points out that over the next 20 years another 15,000 houses, mainly for commuters, will be built in and near Canterbury.

In fact Canterbury will probably turn, whether we like it or not, into a large city with a population of more than 100,000, as has happened at Swindon, Milton Keynes and Peterborough.

The construction of a Canterbury parkway station is only a minor part of the needs to support this development.

The city’s road infrastructure will have to be completely recast and paid for with commercial, industrial and residential property investments.

Canterbury parkway will be the largest change that the city has ever seen, but it is unavoidable.

We need to ensure that this development is a success and that it meets local needs.

A final point. Don’t forget the need for a bridge at Glebe Way, Whitstable, where there have been multiple fatalities at the level crossing.

Safety issues are even more important than the need to avoid congestion. Frederic Stansfield St Augustine’s Park, Ramsgate