A scheme to provide a meeting space for a local community group at Westbury Railway Station has been awarded funding from Great Western Railway.
Designed to help boost the local economy, GWR invited bids from its Customer and Communities Improvement Fund (CCIF) last summer. Funding of £20,000 has been granted to Westbury Railway Station to turn an old stock room into office space.
The room will be redecorated for community rail meetings and for the TransWilts CRO to use as an office.
Chair of TransWilts, Paul Johnson, said, “ Transwilts were delighted to receive the GWR award for the refurbishment of Westbury Station office. The funding supports an ambitious project to convert the station room for a TransWilts office and a shared meeting place for use by neighbouring community rail partnerships.
“Westbury is an important meeting hub for Wiltshire rail services and it makes an ideal location for a meeting room. The funding allows sympathetic refurbishment of a listed building space.”
Station manager Jay Wilcox said, “The room is currently used as storage and for occasional station meetings. I fully support the application and will help organise the painting and decorating and modification and the activation of a second door as a coded access door for community rail.”
GWR managing director Mark Hopwood said, “We at GWR recognise only too well the vital role that rail plays in local and the national economy, and I am delighted that we have been able to continue to support the communities we serve with this funding.
“This year’s entrants include a wide and staggering range of projects, many showing the innovation that the area has become renowned for, and I look forward to them all coming to fruition.”
With match funding, the total investment being made in the Wiltshire area community will top £25,000.
All the proposals were presented to a panel of representatives from GWR’s customer panel (made up of local customers), the advisory board (made up of local stakeholders), and the executive management team. Final recommendations were then put to the Department for Transport (DfT) for approval.
Supported by the DfT, the Customer and Communities Improvement Fund (CCIF) was established to recognise and back projects identified by the communities where GWR operates, with projects requiring local authority match funding.
