Updated - October 2024

Report on meetings of 25th October. Next date for your diary 28th November

By email to all attendees as a note of how the meeting went

Thank you for coming along on Friday (that was 25th October) to the Melksham Transport User Group restart meetings. `I am including copies to those who sent their apologies but expressed an interest too - we are all busy people and a random date was bound to be inconvenient to some.

Over the three sessions, several dozen people came along. There was serious discussion about the future of the group, whether we need one at all these days, and how we might go about organising it practically.

Headlines ...

* Melksham Railway Development Group has achieved so much over the years that it has to some extent worked itself out of a role, and the old hands are largely no longer with us or active after several decades of largely successful voluntary work.

* YES, there is a need for a community group to support and promote public transport in the Melksham Area and there is no other existing group that is doing it.

* We have the encouragement of partners such as the TransWilts Community Rail Partnership, Melksham Without Parish Council, Melksham Town Council, and the Melksham Environment Group in going forward. And the approach is that we partner with all of those and with so many other parties involved.

* It's emphasised that we are a TRANSPORT group and not limited to any single mode.

* We meet again at 18:30 on 28th November (a month from today and a Thursday) to look at appointing officer roles and structure. Please tell others about it - we need a big, strong team of support everywhere from activists to "armchair" supporters.

* Melksham Environment Group meets this Wednesday. At least four committee members from there were at the various sessions on Friday, during which the thought of association to combine admin and work on mutual aims were discussed. MEG (for example) included the rail timetable on their summer lesflet.

In one of the sessions, the question was asked about GDPR and the interest being collected. The information you gave me is purely for use in the interim setup and restart / reform of the group and correspondence using it will be done via "bcc" - i.e. blind copies that do not reveal who's there. I will add an update at https://www.facebook.com/MelkshamTUG/ (a copy of this) that anyone can comment on and also onto the web site at https://www.mtug.org.uk and my personal details are at the base of this email and shareable. This is purely a setup while we work out how we're moving forward.

To note ...
https://www.mtug.org.uk
https://www.facebook.com/MelkshamTUG/
https://mtug.org.uk/lib/mtug25.pdf - slides projected on Friday
https://mtug.org.uk/lib/constbrtief.pdf - constituency brief to Brian Mathew

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25th October - the "Party Room" at the Melksham Campus - please come along for our relaunch of the Melksham Transport User Group. Two sessions - 14:30 and 18:30 so that the meeting is convenient for those who are available afternoon / during daylight, AND for thos who can't make it until the evening. In between, we'll be popping in to the park to dedicate a memorial bench to Peter and Margaret Blackburn. More details via https://grahamellis.uk/blog1383.html, poster via https://mtug.org.uk/lib/mtug_relaunch.pdf and Facebook event page at https://www.facebook.com/events/426757930452183 - please share, but no need to sign up there - just come along.

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In the headline I wrote last month (September 2024), this is a time of great risk an great opportunity. It's also the time for the Melksham Transport User Group and Option 24/7 to re-awaken after a strategic pause to recover from campaign fatigue and partner with others to encourage, promote and help facilitate a public transport network for the future.

We have had successes over the years which we often forget in because excellent public transport provision is still a goal and indeed a holy grail - we are mid-journey

In 2013, we stepped up from 2 trains each way per day calling at Melksham to 8, and passenger journeys rose from 3,000 to 75,000 per annum (and to 240,000 if you included journeys through Melksham.

In 2016, we successfully opposed Wiltshire Council plans to cut 50% of the supported buses - vocally answering a consultation as to whether we would prefer to lose town buses or rural ones, Sunday buses or evening ones with Option 24/7 - we belive that buses should run where people need them, and when then need them.

In 2020, when First Bus withdrew their commercial servics from Melksham, we sucessfully promoted their replacement providing an evening and Sunday service run by Faresaver and supported by Wiltshire Council.

Also in 2020, we fought the permanent withdrawl of Sunday trains - the morning service was at particular risk - and it came back post-covid

In 2022 and 2023 we nagged, persuaded the train service providers to fill evening timetable gaps and we now have evening trains seven days a week.

And in 2024 we saw the return of Sunday buses to Trowbridge and Chippenham, and on 1st September the Sunday service to Devizes and to Bath doubles to an hourly service.

Wow!! Just imagine how we would be without those various improvements. All of them are good improvements that were fully justified and have paid off, and once explained we have been pushing on open doors and working well together. But ...
* We have lost some requests too, and with it seen some backward steps
* We are in a process of review and policy change with a new government
* There is a very great deal still to go to have a system fit for future needs


Writing to continue ...(this is draft)

Footnote - what have we lost from Melksham?
* Second Town Bus
* Evening buses from Chippenham and Trowbridge
* Melksham Rail Link bus
* First Bus
* Santa trips
* Train reliability (if we ever had it)
And we need to look and learn at each of those - not simply target re-instament but rather looking to the future with what is needed for the future. Of the six, three "returns" suggested. Wider, losses include trains Trowbridge to Brighton and Londo, but lots of reallygood gains

What are the opportunities

* Reliable train services
* Clockface train including capacity works
* Bues to the station doubling up as second bus to serve dropped and new areas
* Porous and more friendly ststion and access
* Encouraging fares systems
* Real time at town centre bus stops
* Improved community inputs and ownership
* Better help if things don't work as they should

What are the risks

* Bus fare up 300%
* Loss of evening and sunday bus services
* Thinned and still unrelaibke trains and a shrinking network
* Reduction of train services at Melksham

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The Melksham Transport User Group and its predecessors have partnered with the train operators over the years to promote growth of services and their use. However, we are embarrassed to promote the current service with its awful reliability record. For regular users who are robust to the issues it is still useful - for newcomers there's a significant risk of their first planned use going wrong, quite apart from the worry beforehand of not knowing if it will run.

Four officers of the group met in December 2022, and we have decided on a hiatus through 2023. We'll maintain insurance and CRN membership; our annual Zoom account runs until mid-year and we will occasionally feed online media and deal with correspondence from it.

On the topic of buses - we do not have the same reliability issues on the services between our towns, and I am delighted to remind Melksham residents of the following Faresaver ( https://www.faresaver.co.uk ) services:
* Services 271, 272 and 273 to Bath - 7 days a week including all evenings except Sundays
* Services 272 and 273 to Devizes - 7 days a week including all evenings except Sundays
* Service x34 to Chippenham, and to Trowbridge and Frome - daytime, Mondays to Saturdays
* Services 68 and 69 to Corsham, and to Holt and Trowbridge - daytime, Mondays to Saturdays
* Service 69 to Bradford-on-Avon - limited service, daytime, Mondays to Saturdays
All timetables on the Faresaver web site - proven reliable, and their tracking app is helpful

From January to the end of June (2023) extended to November 2024, single bus fares are capped at £2.00 per person per journey, giving significantly lower fares for many. Bear in mind if you're going somewhere like the Royal United Hospital in Bath, which involves a change of bus in Bath, your best value ticket may still be an Avon Rider.

For holders of ENCTS cards ("senior bus passes"), your pass is valid all day, every day on local bus journeys staring in Wiltshire - also until the end of March 2023, so no payment will be required on any of the services listed above on presentation of your card, even before 09:30 in the morning or after 23:00 at night.

Melksham Transport User Group - travelling after Covid

The Melksham Rail User Group became the station friends member of ACoRP and has evolved into a more general transport organisation Melksham Transport User Group (MTUG). MRUG/MTUG have met online (via Zoom) since the start of the pandemic.
We are now at the point where travel is possible ... safety has always been paramount, but with knowledge, facemasks (please!) and new cleaning regimes - and most services to/from Melksham have plenty of capacity for social distancing.

Some good has come from recent times. Online meetings, monthly newsletters, and developing relationships with partners should not be lost, as we have our work cut out moving forward to rebuild public transport use to, from and within Melksham both for our community and for the wider environment and climate too.

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A review of the last decade and a look forward

We started the last decade with around 3,000 journeys per annum, and with Save the Train as the online campaign group for TransWilts services, looking to save the vestiges of the service that had been cut back a couple of years earlier.

We ended the last decade with around 75,000 journeys per annum, with the Melksham Rail User Group providing local encouragement and support - a rebranding of the Development group - but very much a "station friends" group, working as partners with the rail industry and our local CRP which grew out of "Save the Train".

Although passenger journeys have risen from 3,000 to 75,000 in a decade, that's based on a service that's risen only from unusable to "thin and poor". Gaps of 2 and half hours (10:01 to 12:32) in a service for short journeys such as Melksham to Swindon (25 minutes) or Trowbridge to Chippenham (19 minutes) put most people off using the service. Step up to a reliable hourly service, and passenger numbers at Melksham by the end of this new decade should exceed 300,000.
2009 -


2019 -


2029? -

About the station and the group

Our mission is to maintain and enhance facilities at Melksham station and to act as an independent voice of the station users. This is augmented now by similar objectives for Melksham bus services.

Melksham is served by up to 18 trains a day on the line from Swindon to Westbury via Chippenham and Trowbridge.

Melksham Railway Station was closed in “the Beeching Era” - 1966. It re-opened in 1985, with British Rail, local councils and passengers partnering to bring back at least a part of the facility that had been so missed in the area.

The Melksham Railway Development Group (MRDG) was a community group that has worked hard over the years to support the station, though sometimes when the service was so poor it looked like it was lost again, and indeed if it weren’t for MRDG, Melksham might not have a station or train service today. Seven years ago, MRDG working with the TransWilts Community Rail Partnership, persuaded Wiltshire Council to sponsor, the Department for Transport to fund and GWR to run a three year trial of addition trains, and they have been very successful – for the first time since its re-opening, Melksham now has sufficient trains for passenger numbers to have grown well, and although the group is still very much concerned with further development, it was renamed the Melksham Rail User Group (MRUG).

MRUG has since evolved to look at transport in the town more generally and has become the Melksham Transport User Group (MTUG) in 2021. MTUG runs on a small budget kindly funded by Melksham Town Council and Melksham Without Parish Councils, and our membership includes representatives of both organisations. Events such as the Santa trips are costed to break even - their main intent is to publicise and promote the station and trains that serve it; any profit made is ploughed back into group funds. All work done for "MTUG" by the members is on a voluntary basis, for which the group is grateful.

The Group is also a member of the TransWilts Community Rail Partnership, supporting the use and growth of local and regional passenger train services on the Swindon to Westbury line via Chippenham, Melksham and Trowbridge, with service on to Dilton Marsh, Warminster and Salisbury. The Group is also a 'friend' of the Community Rail Network (formerly known as The Association of Community Rail Partnerships -ACoRP).

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