PASSENGERS using the car park at Melksham railway station are likely to have to pay up to £4 a day from July.

The TransWilts Community Interest Company plans to bring in Australian-owned Smart Parking to manage the car parks at the station and to impose daily charges.

At present, passengers driving to the station can park for free. The new charges being introduced from July will bring the station into line with other small stations in the Wiltshire area.

Paul Johnson, chairman of Chippenham-based TransWilts, which includes a Community Rail Partnership, said: “It is the only option to fund the improvements that we are looking for.

“It is the only way of delivering the development that Melksham deserves. It is an inevitability and is the same as at other station car parks. The only difference is that it will be supporting a community approach.”

TransWilts plans to apply the new charging structure, which will include hourly charges, after signing a lease with Wiltshire Council to take over land next to the existing station car park.

Mr Johnson says they have already applied for planning permission to make changes after acquiring the lease for the former Reed’s site which contains a redundant building.

He says they plan to convert the disused premises into a community cafe with a piazza and an outdoor seating area.

The group’s plans include providing a further 30 car parking spaces, including four with electric car charging points, on top of the 20 existing spaces available.

The station will use Smart Parking to manage the extended car parking and new charges will be introduced to fund the lease costs of £13,000 a year.

Smart Parking already manages other car parks in Wiltshire, including at the Cradle Bridge Retail Park in Trowbridge.

The target date for completion of the TransWilts transformation project for Melksham station is the first quarter of 2020. TransWilts has already obtained grants of up to £30,000 towards the initial £50,000 cost.

Mr Johnson says the additional income from the car park will help meet the difference in current funding and the total investment needed to pay for future development work.

It is estimated this could cost up to £100,000 but Mr Johnson is hoping that TransWilts could break even after three years. Any profits would be ploughed back into station improvements.

TransWilts has already received grants from the Association of Community Rail Partnerships in Huddersfield and matched funding from the Melksham Area

Board.

The station has seen a dramatic increase in passengers since 2013 and now handles more than 75,000 passengers a year.