Cost jump for city’s station masterplan

RAIL

Coventry City Council is  assembling a funding package for an £82.4m transformation of the city’s railway station and surroundings.

The estimated cost of the Coventry station masterplan has more than doubled since 2015 when a figure of £37.6m was cited. The increased cost is partly due to the inclusion of £17m of additional highway works, an enhanced station building, and construction of a bigger and higher quality car park. The cost of the latter has risen from £3.7m to £11m.

The plan includes: a second station entrance building facing onto Warwick Road; a bus interchange connected to the station via a tunnel under Warwick Road; a 644-space multi-storey car park; highway improvements; a second footbridge linking all platforms;  and a new bay platform to accommodate the proposed half-hourly Coventry-Nuneaton rail service. All works could be completed by 2021.

Coventry says about £28.1m is available for the works, leaving a gap of £54.3m. The council is hopeful of securing £3.9m from round three of the Local Growth Fund; £24.4m from the £247m ‘Connecting Coventry’ indicative allocation in the West Midlands Combined Authority’s devolution deal; and £15m from the Devolution Deal HS2 connectivity package.

In addition, the city council plans to finance the multi-storey car park by prudential borrowing, repaid from car park revenues. This arrangement will require the council to lease the car park for a defined period in order to recoup the costs of the initial investment plus interest. The car park would then revert back to Network Rail.