MP wants clarity over plans for station reopening

MP Gideon Amos has asked for clarity over the £15m Wellington Station scheme

The MP for Taunton and Wellington has written to the Department for Transport (DfT) asking for clarity on the planned reopening of a station.

Last week, Chancellor Rachel Reeves reassured Gideon Amos in the House of Commons that projects where work had already started, such as Wellington Station, "would go ahead".

But Mr Amos said he had since received a letter from Rail Minister Peter Hendy offering only a vague commitment to the Wellington project, as part of a review of all government-funded schemes.

Transport Secretary Louise Haigh said she will work quickly to make recommendations about current and future schemes.

The first trains had been expected to call at the new station by June 2026

On 29 July, Ms Reeves announced that the Restoring Your Railway fund would be scrapped as part of plans to tackle a projected £22bn overspend the Labour government said it had inherited from the Conservatives.

The £500m fund, which was launched under Boris Johnson in 2020, intended to develop and fund proposals to reopen stations, like Wellington, which lost direct rail services under the Beeching cuts of the mid-1960s.

Mr Amos has demanded an urgent update on Wellington Station.

“Together, Somerset and Devon have put up over £6m of funding. To delay now would be totally the wrong decision," he said.

“I’m going to keep pushing as hard as possible for our station until the Chancellor’s own commitment is honoured and the station gets built”.

Gideon Amos said he will keep pushing for the station to be built as planned

The DfT declined to directly respond to Mr Amos' claims and referred the BBC to a previous ministerial statement made by the Transport Secretary.

She said: "The previous administration has left a £22bn public spending gap this year alone – £2.9bn of which is unfunded transport commitments.

"Communities up and down the country have been given hope for new transport infrastructure, with no plans or funds to deliver them."

Ms Haigh has commissioned an internal review of the DfT’s capital spend portfolio.