Carno Station Action Group Time for a train service

A joint delegation of Carno and Bow Street station campaigners travelled to Cardiff on November 8th and met with local and regional AMs to brief them before they, in turn, met the Minister, Carl Sargeant the following day.

In the afternoon, the delegation met with Welsh Government civil servants. The photograph below shows members of Carno Station Action Group with Councillor Paul Hinge of Bow Street in the Senedd prior to this meeting.

Carno and Bow Street delegation gathered in Senedd building

The meeting helped to clarify the relationship between the National Transport Plan (NTP) and the Regional Transport Plans (RTPs). The delegation learned that the NTP is not the sum of the RTPs as some had understood. Instead, the NTP contains projects of National significance while the RTPs contain projects of Regional significance. This is of key relevance to the station plans, as new stations are considered to be schemes of Regional rather than National significance. Accordingly it falls to the Regional Transport Consortia to prioritise new stations rather than to the Welsh Government.

Hopes for a new station in Carno were given a major boost on Monday November 14th, 2011, when a capacity crowd in Carno Community Centre were told the station could be opened within three years. About two hundred people packed into the hall to hear a presentation of the station Business Case by Chris Wilson, co-ordinator of TraCC, the Regional Transport Consortium.

Mr Wilson explained that the station Business Case had been assessed in accordance with Welsh Transport Appraisal Guidance (WelTAG) and had predicted that

• a new station would cost £1.7 m (including 50% allowance for "optimism bias")
• it would attract about 14,000 trips per year
• the ratio of Benefits to Costs (the Benefit/Cost Ratio) would be 1.15, assuming no loss of through journeys due to the 2 minute delay to through passengers

Summing up, he noted that, although public transport provision in rural areas was vital for social and environmental reasons, it was often difficult to justify in strict financial terms, because of low population levels. However, in the case of Carno station, a relatively high level of demand had been predicted, resulting in a more than acceptable Benefit/Cost Ratio.

Following the Business Case presentation, TraCC chairman, Councillor Trevor Roberts, told the audience, which included local Assembly Member, Russell George, that TraCC were fully behind the opening of Carno station and that, subject to resolution of funding with the Welsh Government, he could see no reason why the station could not open within three years.

The rapid rise in fuel prices over the last few years considerably strengthens the financial case for the opening of new railway stations, according to research by Carno Station Action Group. The business cases for Carno and Bow Street stations recently completed by Capita Symonds for TraCC are founded on Department of Transport advice that the real price of petrol - ie the retail price corrected for inflation - rises at only 0.2% a year, whereas in fact it has gone up at an average of 3% a year over the last nine years.

CSAG chairman Tony Burton said: "The future price of petrol obviously has a significant effect on the fuel cost savings enjoyed by drivers who transfer to the train. Based on the £1.30/litre price of petrol in 2011 and a conservative 2% annual rise of petrol prices into the future, we calculate that the fuel savings gained by users of Carno and Bow Street stations over their notional 60 year lives would be at least half as much again compared with those estimated in the Capita Symonds report. In the case of Carno, this alone would raise the station financial benefit by one fifth."

On the cost side, Carno Station Action Group point to the use of unrealistically high station operating costs as detracting from the station business cases. A figure of £35,000 per year has been used for each station - enough to employ a full-time stationmaster at each, when the stations are intended to be unstaffed! By comparison, the business case for the proposed Energlyn station near Caerphilly, which is to have two platforms, quotes an operating cost of only £23,500 per year. No evidence has been provided to support the £35,000 per year station operating cost figure and CSAG believe that the cost should be half this at most, in view of the small size and rural situation of each station.

The value for money of transport projects is measured by the ratio of the benefits to the costs - the Benefit Cost Ratio. If proper allowance were made for rising petrol prices and a realistic station operating cost of £17,500 per annum adopted, the Benefit Cost Ratio for Carno station would rise from 1.15 to 1.60. Tony Burton commented "These figures speak for themselves. We look to TraCC and our elected Assembly Members to set out the case to the Minister, Carl Sergeant, as he prepares his revised National Transport Plan. The inclusion of Carno and Bow Street stations in the Plan would clearly demonstrate the Welsh Government's commitment to sustainable transport."