STROUD MP Siobhan Baillie has met with the railway minister to discuss the bid she is supporting to reopen Stonehouse Bristol Road Station.

The project is now in the third round of the Government’s Restoring Your Railway Ideas Fund after Siobhan assisted to successfully secure government investment into the project.  

It proposes to reopen the railway station at Stonehouse on the Birmingham to Bristol railway line. If it happens, it would give Stonehouse and Stroud a direct service to Bristol. 

Siobhan met with Wendy Morton in Westminster this week to discuss the scheme and how it will progress. 

“It was important that I met with the new railway minister to talk through this bid and how it will transform rail services in my constituency,” said Siobhan.

“I made it clear that the ideas fund is a great way to bring disused services and stations back to life and I was a huge supporter of this levelling up tool.

“One of the reasons we need this station is that there is high car dependency within the Stroudwater corridor but local people cannot be expected to abandon their cars without a reliable alternative. 

"We need cleaner, sustainable transport options as well as more convenient and faster journeys into Bristol and beyond. 

“A strategic business case is now being written to submit to the Department for Transport (DfT) with key stakeholders like Network Rail playing a part in the process to provide up to date information that has not been collated before. I remain committed to doing all I can to support this project and make the bid a success."

The Strategic Outline Business Case (SOBC) will set out the case for change and consider all potential public transport options.

Stonehouse Town Council is working in partnership with Stroud District Council, Network Rail, Great Western Railways and other key stakeholders including Gloucestershire County Council and the Gloucestershire Community Rail Partnership to develop the SOBC. 

Network Rail has been commissioned to produce a timetabling study to feed into the final SOBC, to be delivered to DfT by the end of September 2022.