65-YEAR LEASE ALLOWS AVON VALLEY TO PUSH FOR BATH

Long-term security opens the door to grant applications for major projects for ex-Midland line.

Anew long-term lease means that the Avon Valley Railway can seek funding for its longawaited extension towards Bath.

The Bitton-based line signed a 65-year lease with South Gloucestershire Council at the end of November, covering its trackbed as far as its current southern terminus of Avon Riverside. Adam Ashford, media & communciations trustee of the AVR Heritage Trust, explained: “Our previous ten-year lease ended around ten years ago, and we have been operating on security of tenure since then. We have been trying to negotiate a new longerterm lease in that intervening period, but have come across some difficulties in the discussions that have prolonged the signing of a new lease for much longer than we would have liked.”

The lack of long-term security, he continued, “has stopped us applying for certain grants that are reliant on lease-based criteria” and “we felt that securing a longer lease with South Gloucestershire Council would be beneficial before continuing with what is going to be a very large infrastructure project” – referring to the extension to a proposed parkand-ride station at Newbridge, on the outskirts of Bath.

A long-term aspiration of the AVR, which started life as the Bristol Suburban Railway in 1972, the Bath

extension would double the AVR’s length from its current three miles to approximately six miles.

No detailed plans or timescale have been drawn up for the project, but it is likely to be tackled in stages, with Kelston station – about a mile from Avon Riverside – being the probable first target.

Mr Ashford said that the total cost is currently estimated as “somewhere in the region of six to eight million pounds” – requiring grant funding, with which the railway is “currently seeking advice and assistance.”

Bath & North East Somerset Council owns the remainder of the trackbed to Bath, occupied by a Sustrans cycle path which also runs alongside the AVR through Bitton to its northern terminus of Oldland Common. The path will need to be moved to one side of the double-track formation for the extension to progress.

As part of its overall development plan, the AVR will also seek to provide a new maintenance shed at Bitton; most work on locomotives and rolling stock is currently undertaken in the open, or in the former goods shed.

Said Mr Ashford: “This could

open up the goods shed to become our museum facility and will give us more space with which to display the vast array of railway artefacts that we have in store.”

An extension to the station’s buffet building is also mooted, which would re-house the shop and provide the trust with office accommodation.

Asked whether the AVR still has aspirations for a northern extension to the next station at Warmley, Mr Ashford said: “Warmley is very much a ‘never say never’ for us. Bath is our priority in terms of an extension, and once this has been completed, we can look at the viability of a further extension towards Warmley.”

The AVR hopes to return Avonside 0-6-0ST Works No. 1798 ‘Edwin Hulse’ to service within the next two years, the former Avonmouth Imperial Smelting Works engine having been the line’s first working steam locomotive in 1974. RSH 0-6-0T Works No. 7151 is being dismantled for overhaul, and Manning Wardle 0-6-0ST Littleton No. 5 is to be sent away for assessment in the hope of returning it to service for its centenary in 2022 (see Industrial

News, page 32).