Community investment

We received bids for over £8m in funding, and successful schemes included travel plans for Bourne End and Marlow stations, an employability course for young people across South West Wales, and a new waiting shelter at Tackley station.

Case study

Dame Hannah Rogers Trust

The Trust provides work experience opportunities and accessible transport for children and adults with disabilities in Devon.

Our grant helped fund two part-time job coaches, and a wheelchair accessible minibus to connect the Trust’s campus to the railway.

Read more about the Dame Hannah Rogers Trust.

Funding has been provided to 26 projects. These cover a wide range of schemes, spread across our network to benefit as many communities as we can.

Examples include illuminated timetable boards at selected stations on the Avocet line, repairs to the access road at St Germans station, a development and employability programme for the Dame Kelly Holmes Trust in Swindon, refurbishment of the public toilets in Kintbury, and a new Community Rail Partnership for the North Downs line.

In our third year, funding has been provided to 34 projects. We continue to support a range of projects in communities, as well as supporting community-led initiatives at our stations.

Examples include working to improve walking routes linking stations of all sizes to the areas they serve, partnership work to improve security and offer customers extra peace of mind, research to understand opportunities for improved interchange facilities, supporting work to rehabilitate and prevent offending through mentoring, and projects to regenerate and restore a station building at Saltash into a valued community hub and gateway to Cornwall.

In our fourth year, funding has been provided to 39 projects (listed in full below). We continue to support a range of projects in communities, as well as supporting community-led initiatives at our stations.

Examples include:

• championing local food links and a project to develop a garden space at Avonmouth station;
• promotion of train travel and safety awareness of the railway for young people with projects in Wales and Berkshire;
• improved interchange facilities to connect people to stations;
• projects to support our Community Rail Partnerships to deliver improvements to facilities and journey experience on our local routes, and;
• a project to develop a feasibility study and detailed design work to construct an additional platform at Bodmin General, to improve connections with Bodmin Parkway

Year 4 Projects

Year 4 Total: £838,100