An update provided by Gordon Oliver, Principal Transport Policy Officer.

Gordon Oliver informed the Forum Members of the following points:

Maidenhead Station:

The LEP has provisionally allocated funding to the interchange. We are working closely with rail industry partners who are supportive of the project.

We have looked at a large number of options and have concluded that we can’t progress an interchange without third party land.  We have had discussions with neighbouring private landowners who have thus far indicated that they do not wish to work with us on a joint development of the site as a whole. We have therefore had to look at compulsory purchase options - these will increase costs considerably. A significant amount of new development will be required in order to address the resulting funding gap.

We have looked at various different permutations, including development on Network Rail land and on adjacent private land. We are currently working up the last of these options before discussing them with members.

We hope to agree the preferred option shortly, before working up the detailed design and business case in order to secure the LEP funding.

Station Travel Plan Workshop:

Great Western Railway (GWR) are committed to preparing station travel plans in 2016/17 for:

·         Maidenhead

·         Windsor and Eton Central

·         Twyford

·         Newbury

A station travel plans seeks to manage travel generated by the station in order to reduce its impact on the environment and the local community.

GWR has undertaken surveys to understand how people arrive at the station and which entrance they use. They have done surveys of car and cycle parking to understand usage. They have also carried out an audit of the station to identify problem areas.

On Friday, they held a stakeholder workshop to get feedback on their initial findings and to capture any additional issues that were not flagged up in their initial work.

Issues were mostly focused on car parking, bus interchange, taxis, cycle parking and signage.

The Council will prepare a follow up response to reiterate our concerns and ensure that all issues are captured for Maidenhead and Windsor and Eton Central.

If any Access Advisory Forum members have any issues that they would like to raise, then please email transport@rbwm.gov.uk as soon as possible and we will forward them on.

We are expecting a draft Station Travel Plan by the end of July.

Forum Members discussed the item and made the following points:

·         No land by Taplow station for car parking so Maidenhead Station will be even busier.

·         The Weightwatchers site opposite Maidenhead Station could be obtained once the current lease ended.

·         An additional high level entrance was proposed with direct access onto platform 1. However this platform is very narrow and trains pass at high speed, thus creating a safety issue. Also, the platform is little used and passengers would need to use the subway or lifts to access the other platforms, which would be poor from an accessibility perspective.

·         The council is looking at an additional car park at Stafferton Way to deal with the parking issues at Maidenhead station and the town centre more generally.

·         The access on the south side was being widened and more ticket gates were being added and more ticket gates were being added to the other entrance too.

·         Sufficient disabled car parking spaces and drop off points required at Maidenhead Station. Currently only three which was not sufficient.

·         The current parking has permit holders spaces closest to the entrance. New plans would be created as part of the interchange scheme, which had disabled parking closest to the entrance and have more disabled spaces. The forecourt needed to be safer and clearer.

ACTION: Gordon Oliver to provide sketches of the new station interchange plans at the next meeting if available.