Beattock Station Action Group are holding our AGM in Beattock Village hall, High Street, Beattock DG10 9QZ on Thursday 14th September at 7.15 pm. Why not come along to meet the committee and update on the station.

On Friday 30th June 2023 Swestrans board submitted it’s Regional Transport Strategy  ( 2023 to 2042 ) to the Scottish Transport Minister for approval .

In it ( Priority 38 ) says ” Opportunities should be investigated to run a local service on the WCML between Carlisle and Glasgow/Edinburgh and ( Priority 42 ) ” the reopening of stations  ( including Beattock ) on the WCML”. Hopefully this will come back intact with no alterations from the Sottish Transport Minister.

The meeting was a general discussion and overview of the process to date including the submission of the original Scottish Transport Appraisal Guidance ( STAG ) in 2019 the pause due to STPR2 and then following the lark of any local rail interventions through this process our subsequent ask to that Transport Scotland assess the STAG as submitted ( with the addendums as requested ) Transport Scotland were seeking confirmation that the STAG and the possible rail intervention in it continued to have SWestrans board , wider political and Action Group support which the board confirmed.

Given the time taken to date they committed to provide an early detailed written response to the STAG once it had gone through their own internal authorisation / sign-off . The board has asked to get this by the end of the week or in time for they June meeting.

Ron Mc Lean ( Chairman ) and Katherine Clemmens ( Secretary ) had a virtual meeting this afternoon with Graham Meiklejohn ( Head of Regional Development ) of TransPennine Express further discussion about reopening of Beattock station. Graham was very positive and feels that BSAG must keep up the political momentum with our MSPs and MPs. We thanked him for his positive advice and support.

Beattock Station Action Group is holding it’s AGM in the Proundfoot indoor sports & club, Mansfield Place, Moffat DG10 9SD on Thursday 28th July at 7.15 pm.Why come along to hear how we getting on with the objective to reopen Beattock Station and have chat with the members of the committee. The AGM will elect the new office bearers at this time

Beattock Station Action Group was represented by Ron Mc Lean ( Chair ) Franca Bruno ( Vice Chair ) and Katherine Clemmens ( Secretary ). Tony  Couch, chair of Kirkpatrick Juxta Community Council was also present, along with presentatives from Eastriggs and Thornhill Railway Action Groups and Douglas Kirkpatrick of SWESTRANS. The group meeting was conducted by Catherine Demetriadi , PA to Emma Harper MSP .It was agreed to call these meeting the South West Railway Action Group.

AIMS: to provide a co-ordinated response to events and documents.

Comments were noted on the recent letter from Jenny  Gilruth , Transport Minister. Ron Mc Lean asked where are we in the “pipeline” process. DK checked and we are at the end of the “per-pipeline”process.

SWESTRANS have submitted papers to Transport Scotland STAG two and Transport Scotland will supply “consolidated feedback”in late summer.

DK advises waiting for this feedback before meeting Jenny Gilruth, which could mean September / October. As a result no date was fixed for the next meeting.

Beattock Station Action Group was invited to a virtual meeting convened by Emma Harper MSP on 23rd March. This meeting was convened and chaired by Scott Mc Ivanney , Emma Harper ‘ PA . There should have been a mixture of politicians, civil servants and campaign groups present, but due to circumstances beyond our control,

( it was the day P&O  announced mass redundancies ) no politicians were present , and no civil servants , eg Swestrans and Transport Scotland. However, we did have a positive meeting with the campaign groups from Thornhill and Eastriggs, and it was good to finally meet like minded individuals from our part of Scotland. We are all in broad agreement on topics like the future of the STAG reports, for instance, will they have to be updated ?

Jenny Gilruth, the Transport Minister feels that, while we are looking at the long term we should present a united pressure group for the South of Scotland , in order to keep an emphasis on this region. At the same time Jenny Gilruth has committed to Transport Scotland having presence at these meetings.

It was agreed  to have a joint pre – meeting with the other campaign groups and Swestrans and we made a provisional date of 20th April 2022. Scott Mc Ivanney proposed a meeting with Transport Scotland , probably in June, after the local elections have taken place agreed.

Beattock Station Action Group is delighted to announce that a new Steering Group, chaired by Emma Harper MSP, will convene on 23rd March 2022 .The group’s remit will be to progress the re-opening of Beattock, Thornhill and Eastriggs stations and will compromise delegates from Transport Scotland, Swestrans and local ward councillors and MSPs from the local area and Scotrail hopefully and campaign groups including delegates from BSAG. The principle item on the agenda would be to agree the premise of re-opening any or all of these stations.Thereafter we would envisage the Steering Group meeting ( virtually ) on a regular basis, to progress specific aspects of decisions taken ( with the backing of the Transport Minister ) .This came about after Ron Mc Lean Stephen Thompson and Kartherine Clemmens had a positive meeting with Paul Mc Lennan MSP, who has progressed the re-openings of East Linton and Reston stations. We feel that this is is a very positive move , and while we still have a long way to go, the Campaign is back on track !

The Beattock Station Action Group would like as many people in the area to give their views on the STPR 2 report which was published on Thursday 20th January and this would be much appreciated , our concern is the lack of railway projects in the Dumfries and Galloway area.

Just because our project isn’t mentioned in the document itself , it does not mean it won’t go ahead !

The deadline for responding to the consultation is midnight on Friday the 15th of April 2022, you can get the link on our facebook page.