Car park back in public use soon
Town centre: Plans also in pipeline to improve station
A car park in Maidenhead could be opened back up for public use again in the near future after it was used to facilitate the delivery of the Elizabeth Line.
Silco Drive car park was used as a site compound allowing for the arrival of Crossrail in recent years, and work is now being done to restore it to public use.
Network Rail has said it is waiting for the installation of a meter at the car park to provide a permanent light supply, CCTV and automatic number plate recognition cameras, after which the car park will be handed back to Great Western Railway (GWR) to open it back up to public use.
It is hoped that this can be done ‘in the next couple of weeks’, the rail company added.
Maidenhead railway station, which has now connected to central London on the Elizabeth line network (see p7), could also be seeing some improvement works carried out to enhance the
layout and increase capacity.
In May, at a Maidenhead Town Forum meeting, Network Rail revealed plans as part of the scope of the Crossrail works to carry out improvements to the layout of the station.
This included reconfiguring the northern entrance and adding an additional gate to the southern entrance, widening it, and moving it over slightly to where the building used for storage is on platform one.
At the meeting, a suggestion was also heard to add an additional staircase where platforms two and three were to help deal with the extra capacity from Crossrail, however, it was emphasised at that time there was no funding for this, and this was not part of the scope of the Crossrail works.
Now, Network Rail has said that it is developing ‘aspirational plans for a number of improvements, with a focus on passenger safety’.
The rail company has not provided any specific details of what the improvements will be, stating that they are in the ‘very early stages’.
A Network Rail spokesperson said: “In recent years, the car park at Silco Drive had been used as a site compound to facilitate the delivery of the Elizabeth line.
“With the line now up and running, our contractors have vacated the site, which is currently in the process of being reinstated as a public car park.
“With respect to Maidenhead station, we are developing aspirational plans for a number of improvements, with a focus on passenger safety.
“These plans are in the very early stages and as yet no detailed designs have been drawn up.”