Councillors welcomed the plans to look at including facilities like toilets and café at the new Waterbeach Station, after none were originally proposed.
Plans to include facilities like toilets and a café at the new Waterbeach Station have been welcomed by councillors, who shared concerns about taxpayers’ money being used to fund them. The Greater Cambridge Partnership (GCP) has proposed to work on plans to include a waiting room, toilets, and a café at the new Waterbeach Station.
Original approved plans for the unmanned station did not include any amenities, like toilets or a waiting room. Concerns about the lack of facilities were raised, particularly due to the higher number of people expected to use the new station.
The railway station in Waterbeach is being moved as part of plans to build Waterbeach New Town, which will see around 11,000 new homes built. Outline planning permission for the second phase of up to 4,500 homes was approved by South Cambridgeshire District Council in 2021, with a condition that the new station would be built and open to use before people can move into the new homes.
The following year it emerged that the developer had not been able to make a commercial deal to build the new station. The GCP was asked to take on the project, and it agreed.
A report presented to the GCP’s joint assembly on Thursday (February 12) said the additional facilities proposed at the new station are likely to cost between £400,000 to £600,000 to build. The report added that there will also be maintenance costs of around £80,000 a year, which Cambridgeshire County Council, or a successor authority after local government reorganisation, will have to take on.
The report said any decision to increase the budget for the station project will need to be approved by the GCP’s executive board. It added that this could impact the delivery of other schemes. Therefore, officers at the GCP will be looking into “funding opportunities” for the proposed facilities.
Councillor Paul Bearpark thanked officers for listening to the concerns that had been raised about the lack of facilities originally proposed for the new station. He said: “I appreciate there will be some cost associated with delivering these facilities, but I think the benefits will greatly outweigh the cost. [The facilities] will make the station more attractive to use, which is what we want.”
Councillor Simon Smith said Waterbeach will be becoming a “small town” and that building a new station without facilities “would not be right”.
Councillor Heather Williams said she agreed the facilities are required to make the station “attractive” for people to use. However, she voiced her concerns about public money being used to fund the station project. She said: “I do absolutely object to taxpayer’s money being put towards this.
“The developer came here, they sat and said they had the money secured, we only gave them permission because they said they had the money, but then not long later the taxpayer was bailing them out. We need to try and safeguard for the future, we need to have a discussion on what to do in these scenarios, because we cannot afford to bail people out.”
The GCP executive board is expected to be asked next month to agree that work can continue to further progress the development of the new facilities. Officers said they hope to come back later in the year with a full proposal for the station facilities.
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