The reopening of a passenger railway line serving north west Bristol has moved a big step forward with the submission of plans for the final station on the route. Henbury Railway Station is the terminus for the Henbury spur which will see five-carriage hourly services to Bristol Temple Meads, also stopping at new stations at North Filton and Ashley Down.
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00:00 The reopening of a passenger railway line serving north-west Bristol has
00:05 moved a big step forward with the submission of plans for the final
00:10 station on the route. Hembree railway station is the terminus for the Hembree
00:14 spur which will see five carriage hourly services to Bristol Temple Meads also
00:20 stopping at new stations at North Filton and Ashley Down. Of course I actually
00:25 got to say this is really exciting for us as a community we've been pushing this
00:28 for so long so we're to finally have an application in is beyond words.
00:32 Anticipated it'll be two carriage we think we're looking at start with
00:37 it hourly but this is one of those things that let's just get the line open
00:40 let's get the service started we're going to prove that it's popular and at
00:45 that point they will start expanding it. Like they did the Seven Beach line as
00:47 more and more people started using it it became more and more frequent. You know I
00:51 remember FOSMA's campaign to have a half hourly service on Seven Beach and we
00:54 said oh there's no need for it and then they proved the need so let's get it
00:58 open get it started get the trains running and then we'll expand on it.
01:00 There'll be several routes actually we think there's a footpath that's going to
01:03 connect down the back of it which goes to Fishpool Hill so Brent will be able
01:06 to access it there and there's also going to be a connector bridge down there
01:09 with a ramp that goes down to it so you can access it via road where you come in
01:13 and there'll be a car park over there or it'll be the footbridge down here or the
01:17 footpath over there. But beyond the cement works just in the distance we've
01:20 actually got the old Hembree station so when they were consulting on where the
01:23 station was going to go there were two options there was the one over there
01:26 which we talked about and there was the old station itself. Work has already
01:30 started on Ashley Down while plans for North Filton next to the huge Brabazion
01:35 development at the old airfield were given the go ahead earlier this year but
01:40 what do locals think of these new plans? Let's find out. I think it's brilliant
01:45 because what it means is there'll be more opportunities for people to leave
01:50 their cars behind and if they leave their cars behind there'll be less air
01:54 pollution because the air pollution in Bristol is terrible and it's
02:01 destroying people's lives you know. The new station will be located on the
02:06 eastern side of the A4018 dual carriageway and will eventually form part
02:11 of the planned Cribs Patchway new neighbourhood village being built around
02:16 it. First of all obviously you won't be playing clean air zone because actually won't be on it
02:21 you'll be using rail. It just opens up more opportunities because you'll be
02:25 able to get direct buses to jobs in places like Filton and all the rest of it.
02:28 So that's really good news you can access jobs at the new arena you can go
02:31 to Phil & Abbey Wood you go to Temple Meads. It's not a silver bullet I'm not
02:35 going to say it is but it's part of a solution and it will help the area. I've
02:40 got to be in my bonnet about this because I help a group called Bristol
02:44 Clean Air Alliance I've been working with them since 2018 and we basically
02:50 campaign to help improve the air quality in Bristol and a part of that is
02:57 encouraging people to leave their cars behind and to use public transport to
03:01 walk to cycle and to take the train.