‘Investing in transport links is essential to levelling up access to opportunities across the country, ensuring our communities are better connected, local economies flourish and more than half a century of isolation is undone’.
DEpartment for Transport – Restoring Your railway fund 2020
The Strategic Outline Case (SOC)
In mid-February 2022, supported by our stakeholders and WSP, the Langport Transport Group (LTG) submitted the SOC to the Department for Transport. The SOC took 10 months, numerous workshops and considerable effort by everyone involved.
Overall, the SOC recommended that there was strong case for a new station for Langport Somerton and recommended that the scheme progresses to the next phase.
Below are the highlights of the SOC and followed by a precis of the Five Cases (Strategic Case, Economic Case, Financial Case, Commercial Case, and the Management Case).
The Department for Transport continue to assess all the SOCs that have been submitted and we look forward to hearing the results in due course. (See our Latest News section for updates).
Highlights of SOC
A new railway station in the Langport-Somerton area of Somerset offers an opportunity to restore lost connectivity to the rail network for the clusters of population in a wide area of South Somerset.
The area served by the new station covers not only the towns of Langport and Somerton but a wide area beyond, including Glastonbury and Street to the north, Long Sutton, Kingsbury Episcopi and Martock to the south, and Curry Rivel to the west.
In total, over 50,000 people currently live within this catchment area and would benefit from the restoration of a community station in Langport or Somerton.
The railway line passes through the heart of the Langport-Somerton community, yet residents are unable to access the rail network.
The SOC delivered detailed analysis of the socio-economic benefits and the environmental impacts of not restoring a rail station. A consequence of this lost rail connectivity is that residents and communities in the area have had to rely on car travel or limited public bus services for many trips resulting in:
- lower productivity through longer journey times
- highway congestion
- constrained mobility
- less accessibility to job, education and employment opportunities.
A Langport-Somerton station will offer to local communities either direct access by walking, public transport connections or short car journeys to the station to access rail services.
Restoration of the station would reconnect these local communities to a hierarchy of regional urban centres such as Taunton, Exeter and Bristol, benefitting residents, workers and visitors alike.
The station is forecast to attract over 200,000 passengers per year which is comparable to other neighbouring stations on the rail network, attracting similar passenger numbers to Castle Cary and more than Crewkerne, Sherborne, Bruton, Frome and Templecombe stations.
Train journey times from Langport/Somerton to Castle Cary will be around 10-13 minutes travel time and Taunton 16-19 minutes representing large time savings compared to existing travel times by car or public transport.
Typical car journey times from Langport and Somerton to Taunton are range from between 25 and 50 minutes depending on the time of day whereas bus journey times of an hour or more are the norm.
Strategic Case
The first task of the Strategic Case was to define and analyse whether rail was a viable option against other modes of transport.
Each alternative modal option’s fit with RYR objectives was scored between 1 (Weak Fit) and 3 (Strong Fit). As can be seen in the table above, the rail alternative scores highest across all the scheme objectives due to its capacity to provide a strong alternative to the car, delivers the greatest improvement in sustainable transport connectivity, encourages mode shift and delivers healthy lifestyles.
The rail alternative scores highest as it is best aligned with the scheme objectives due to its ability to provide a strong alternative to the car, delivering the greatest increase to accessibility and providing the safest method of inter-urban travel, as well as encouraging mode shift and improving the environment through reduced road traffic carbon emissions.
So rail remains the strongest option and the SOC could proceed to look at the vast array of demographic data, passenger demand, environmental aspects and potential station location options.
Four potential station location options were considered:
- Langport. The original station location of Langport East station (Langport Option 1);
- Langport. A site to the east of Option 1, near the current pedestrian railway crossing (Langport Option 2);
- Tengore Lane; and
- Somerton. A site accessed via Ricksey Lane.
A Station Site Feasibility Assessment study was carried out of these four sites and provided a recommendation for the preferred locations of Langport Option 2 and Somerton. Langport Option 1 and Tengore Lane were deemed unsuitable locations for a new rail station.
The strategic case for the scheme described and confirmed how the new station will provide the following:
- Support sustainable economic growth including raising productivity benefits arising from better connectivity to the surrounding region and beyond, and support economic rebalancing as set out in the government’s Levelling-Up White Paper.
- Support social cohesion through offering improved access for the communities to jobs, healthcare, education and other services and amenities, particularly for the younger and older demographic who have less access to a car and are reliant on public transport. Employment and mobility options are transformed with the introduction of a new Langport-Somerton station – commuting to London becomes a reality, as well as access to wider markets of Taunton, Reading and Exeter for local businesses.
- Reduce transport sector carbon emissions in support of South Somerset District’s target for carbon net zero by 2030, and government policies for carbon net zero by 2050;
- Align with a raft of national, regional and local planning, infrastructure, environmental and transport policies, and has wide community support. This scheme funding bid is supported by sub-national organisations, local authorities, rail industry stakeholders including Network Rail, Great Western Railway (GWR) along with local business groups.
Economic Case
This chapter considered the economic case for the proposed new rail station in the Langport-Somerton area. The economic case explored the long-list and short-list of options that have been considered in the shortlisting process and assesses the high-level value for money of the proposed scheme using cost-benefit analysis across a 60-year appraisal period.
The economic case for the scheme where a new station is provided and is served by a new train service (hourly Westbury to Taunton) provided by others produces a positive NPV and results in a ‘Very High (And Financially Positive)’ value for money scheme. A new station served by stopping existing semi-fast trains services would produce a value for money category of ‘Economically Efficient Cost Saving’ for Langport 2 option and a value for money category of ‘Economically Efficient Cost Saving’ for the Somerton option.
The economic case becomes weaker when the full costs of the additional hourly train service between Westbury and Taunton are added to the station costs. In particular, the provision of a train service accounts for about 83% of the total construction and operating costs over the 60-year appraisal period and results in the station showing ‘Poor’ value for money. If a train service is provided by others and is not part of the scheme, whether it be the proposed Westbury to Taunton service or a new call at the new station for existing GWR semi fast services, the scheme’s economic case is improved significantly.
Moreover, whilst the assessment considered the travel market for new rail users of the new station and new rail users at other stations served by the train service, a review of timetabling on other regional services as a result of introducing the new service were not considered. There may be further scope to increase the benefits of the new station and train service through changes to the timetabling of other train services to maximise the benefits for rail passengers across the regional rail network. Additional services may also be offered by the open access operator, GO-OP.
Financial Case.
The Financial Case considered the costs for the construction of this project, which have also been an input to the Economic Case. Given the stage of business case development, high-level indicative cost estimates (including risk and inflation) were produced for the delivery of the scheme. The capital cost for the shortlisted options to take forward to the next stage of the business case are £23.45 million for Langport 2 and £15.75 million for Somerton. Given the early stage of business case development these costs sit within lower and upper bound optimism bias of 50%.
The Langport 2 option total cost is estimated at £23.5M (a station capital cost of £12.1M, plus the highways and access costs of £11.3M).
The Somerton station option total cost is much less at £15.8M (station capital cost of £12.9M and highways/access costs of £2.8M).
The scheme estimates two 115m platforms with all the usual station facilities (footbridge, lifts, car parking, EV charging etc).
Commercial Case
The Commercial Case set out the commercial viability of the new railway station scheme and setting out the procurement strategy which will be used to engage with the market. The approach to risk management; commercial timescales, as well as how the capability and technical expertise of the team delivering the project will be secured are described.
Management Case
The Management Case provided the delivery framework for the new railway station scheme describing how rail industry partners will manage this project to achieve successful delivery of the next stage of development through to the implementation of the design. The Management Case sets out the proposed stakeholder engagement, risks to the programme, scheme dependencies, delivery approach, the monitoring and evaluation plan and approach to adherence with industry governance, including Network Rail and DfT processes. All rail industry partners and stakeholders have collaborated in the preparation of this SOC, with a strong commitment to deliver the scheme and will provide a sound basis for the governance of the scheme going forward.
Conclusion
The project is aligned with the vision and requirements of the RYR fund and is supported by national and local organisations. It has enjoyed collaborative support, through the Steering Group from the Department for Transport, Local and Regional government, Network Rail, GWR and local community groups. It is a strong case that will reconnect Langport, Somerton and their surrounding communities to the rail network and end this area’s 60-year isolation from the rail network. Given the substantial benefits generated by the new station, particularly in terms of new users to rail, and the scope for further study of the benefits (regeneration of the local economy and ‘Levelling-Up’, building social cohesion, improving access to education and decarbonising transport) and costs of the scheme, both Langport Option 2 and Somerton rail options are recommended to be taken forward to the next stage of business case development.
To be directed to the Strategic Outline Case, click on the link below.
Langport Transport Group 