The railway station is a key gateway to the town centre, it is extremely important as an arrival and departure point - for some people this will be their first impression of the town  so the whole environment surrounding the station needs to be well designed, attractive, safe, welcoming and functional as a transport facility.

At the moment the Station Approach area is often congested with large numbers of waiting vehicles, as a result pedestrian routes to and from the station are not very attractive and can become unclear as part of the general congestion. The station area itself is slightly cut off from the rest of the town centre so a major plank of the Station Approach project is to improve links into the town centre by upgrading the pedestrian routes to the north and to the east as part of general improvements to the public space in the station forecourt area linking up to Old Market Place, Bethlehem Street and Garden Street.

Physical improvements to the area

Will be led by the need to redesign the current layout to ease congestion by improving the movement and circulation of traffic and pedestrians. The project also intends to improve the overall look of this particular area by encouraging and supporting facelift treatments and general improvements to properties within Station Approach and its immediate surroundings.