North Bristol could face “gridlock” as construction work for two new train stations will begin a year after the new arena opens. A giant 17,000-spectator arena will open at Filton Airfield in 2024, while building work for stations next to the arena and in Henbury will begin in 2025.
North Filton station will be built next to the Brabazon Hangars, and Henbury station will be built where the railway line crosses Wyck Beck Road A4018. A third station is also planned in Ashley Down. Trains would run just once an hour from each station to Temple Meads.
The North Filton station was initially due to be completed before the YTL Arena opens, but has suffered long delays. Bristol mayor Marvin Rees faced questions, during a full council meeting on October 18, about what work he was doing to speed up the process.
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Councillor Mark Weston, leader of the Conservative group on Bristol City Council, said: “Henbury station is going to planning in early 2023. The business case is then 2024 and construction is in 2025. Now that to me is a year gap at every single stage of the process, and yet this has been planned for years.
“The Brabazon Arena is opening in 2024. A major part of its traffic and travel plan was to have train stations open in 2024. If those train stations aren’t open, you have gridlock in north Bristol.”
Network Rail applied for planning permission for the North Filton train station in September last year, but South Gloucestershire Council has not yet decided whether to grant permission. No planning application has been made yet for the Henbury train station.
As well as hourly trains once the stations are finally built, gig-goers will be able to get to the new arena by catching a bus. YTL, which owns the new venue, said the site would also be “easily accessed by car from the M5”.
The mayor said he was “constantly driving delivery” but added it wasn’t unusual to have challenges working with the railway network. He also said the current problems in Westminster were impacting Bristol.
Mr Rees said: “We’re constantly driving on delivery, we all want that delivery to happen, and the conversations with YTL are constant with our team. While we’ve had a very good working relationship, we also know there are challenges working with the rail network, so this isn’t unusual. Having said that, and I can see people are trying to do some stirring, we’ve had a very good relationship over Temple Meads in the build-up to this and good cooperation. But sometimes there are challenges that are beyond any single organisation that need to be overcome.
“We do face another major challenge in terms of delivering any infrastructure, and that’s the state of the national economy. This is not a party political point, but I’m sure it wouldn’t have escaped your attention that things have not gone as smoothly as we would normally like. And there are very real-world consequences for political instability, rising interest rates and the loss of market confidence in the government. Those play themselves out in our ability to deliver at the local level on timelines.”
