Work is underway to design a railway station close to Portway Park & Ride site near Avonmouth – the first new station in the Bristol area for more than 20 years.
Over the next month rail engineers will survey the development site on the Severn Beach line to assess ground conditions. The £2.23m station, which is due to be completed by 2019, will be key in reducing car commuting and improving access to jobs.
Bristol City Council secured £1.67m from the government’s New Stations Fund to make the project possible after working on it with Network Rail. 
The newly formed West of England Combined Authority and the West of England Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) are supporting the project by providing some additional funding as well as wider investment to better link the new station to the park and ride site.
Mayor of Bristol Marvin Rees said securing the rail funding from the government would help meet a long-held aspiration to build a new station to serve the Portway Park & Ride site.
“It will complement the existing bus services which will continue to serve the city centre and encourage more people from a wider area to use these routes, reducing congestion and improving our air quality,” he said
“Council colleagues have already been working with Network Rail over the last few years to develop the scheme and detailed development work is underway. We are working towards completing the station during 2019/20.”
The scheme forms part of a long-term rail strategy for the city region through the MetroWest programme, including improved frequencies on the Severn Beach Line, which will serve the station by 2020.
The funding from government announced last month will help the scheme move forward with credibility after being endorsed by the Department for Transport (DfT) and the rail industry.
Bristol City Council cabinet member for transport Cllr Mhairi Threlfall added: “To improve the flow of people across the city and connect them to jobs, education and healthcare, we need the right transport infrastructure – and rail improvements like this are an important part of our travel planning. The Portway scheme will also play a critical role in improving access to both the Temple Quarter Enterprise Zone and the Avonmouth Enterprise Area, which are anticipated to accommodate up to 31,000 new jobs over the next 25 years.”
Network Rail route business development director Malcolm Parsons the new station would significantly improve journeys for passengers in Bristol at a time when more people were using the railway than ever before.
“Securing the funding is the culmination of years of hard work and supports the wider upgrades being delivered in Bristol which includes the biggest signalling modernisation anywhere in the country, Filton Four Tracking and improvements to the Severn Beach Line. These upgrades will provide greater capacity, more frequent services and a more reliable railway with the new Portway Station further enhancing Bristol’s rail network,” he said.
The current estimated cost of the project is £2.63m which includes £2.23m for delivering the rail infrastructure plus funding to make improvements to the Park & Ride site to accommodate the station, including a new amenity building to benefit both rail and bus passengers.
The LEP Joint Committee awarded funding from the Local Growth Fund (LGF) for this scheme in June, subject to further development work and planning permission being secured, in the knowledge that a bid to government for part of the New Stations Fund was pending. This was to ensure the scheme could continue to progress in case the bid wasn’t successful.
The money from the New Stations Fund will reduce the call on the LGF by £1.67m and means this funding back go back into the regional programme to support other key projects.
The last new railway station in the Bristol city region to be built was Filton Abbey Wood, which opened in 1996.
Pictured: The area in red indicates the approximate location of the rail platform. The exact location will be agreed following the investigation work and design development.
