Full speed ahead to find funding for new Cardiff Parkway station

CHANCELLOR Rachel Reeves has given the proposed Cardiff Parkway mainline train station and integrated business park project a major boost in her Budget, with a commitment to provide funding to help realise its huge economic potential.

- SION BARRY Business editor

The ambitious scheme, driven by South Wales Developments Ltd, secured planning consent from the Welsh Government in January, nearly three years after it was called in as a development of national significance.

It has been identified by Rolls-Royce as a potential new hub that could create thousands of high-skilled jobs.

The engineering giant has stated the site ticks all the boxes for such an investment, based on the business park having its own train station, access to a skilled workforce, nine universities across south Wales and the West of England, and the security of a 200-acre site with close proximity by rail to both Cardiff and Bristol.

The company has already established a satellite office at a nearby business park in St Mellons for its Submarines division, which will eventually create 200 jobs.

More design work is required to determine the final cost of a four-plat-form Parkway mainline station.

Due to inflation and a protracted planning process, the cost has risen on the pre-pandemic projection.

In her spending review in the summer, the Chancellor announced £445m for rail enhancement projects in Wales. While this was welcomed, tens of billions were committed for rail schemes in the Midlands and the North.

The £445m includes £90m for project development. It also includes previously-committed funding to upgrade the South Wales Mainline - around £50m — as well as £50m towards the Cardiff Central Station upgrade.

A project at Padeswood sidings in Flintshire, which aims to increase the number of trains able to run between Wrexham and Merseyside, will consume around £30m of the allocation.