A senior borough councillor officer said there could be a “hiatus” on the construction of Wixams station if a new design has to be drawn up for the Universal Studios theme park.
Jon Shortland, chief officer – planning, infrastructure and economic growth – told the Environment and Sustainable Communities Overview and Scrutiny Committee (16 January), that a new station for Universal would be a “bigger” station than the one the council is proposing.
“Our station is going to have two platforms, and it’s going to accept trains running between 6am and 10pm,” he said.
“If Universal comes along they clearly need a station which is able to cope, not just with far more passengers, but also for passengers at later times.
“And they won’t have people all [leaving] the park by 10pm. The staff, no doubt, will want to come in through the night depending on what shift they’re on.
“What they need is a four-platform station, with wider platforms in case of overcrowding. It would be a totally different station to the one we’re building.
“It wouldn’t necessarily be the case that we’re what we’ve done is not useful – I think some of it definitely would be.
“But it would need, I think, probably a hiatus whilst the new design was drawn up and implemented.
“Then work could continue to deliver a bigger, better station,” he said.
Mr Shortland added that at the end of last month, the council had either spent or committed to spending £16 million of the £65 million budget.
“So that’s roughly a quarter of it, and over the next three months, we will spend a further £5 million on further works.
“We’re constantly working with [Network Rail] to see if there are things that we can do to reduce costs of items by moving things around in the programme.
“That is something that may bear some fruit in hopefully reducing the cost of the programme overall. But I can’t promise anything at this point,” he said.
There will be a full closure of the line on 22 and 23 February, with partial closures on the three weeks after that, Mr Shortland added.
Speaking in Parliament on Thursday (16 January) Tourism Minister Chris Bryand told Mid Beds MP Blake Stephenson that negotiations over the potential theme park were “going well” – but added that he could not comment further.
by John Guinn
Local Democracy Reporter
