Access to new £20m Wellington railway station secured as 178 homes approved
The government announced last year that rail services would be returning after more than 60 years
Last updated 26th Feb 2026
The access to Wellington’s new £20m railway station can soon begin construction after plans for 178 homes were approved.
Following the conclusion of its spending review, the government announced in mid-June 2025 that rail services would be returning to Wellington more than 60 years after its original station closed as part of the infamous Beeching cuts.
Access to the new station, its car park, transport interchange and a ‘station square’ public open space (featuring the original apex of the Wellington Monument) will be achieved through a housing development west of Nynehead Road, with the existing access road to the Lidl supermarket being extended to the north-west.
West of England Developments (Taunton) Ltd. secured outline planning consent in May 2024 to deliver this spine road along with up to 200 new homes, commercial space and extensive walking and cycling links.
The site was subsequently sold to Bloor Homes South West, which published revised proposals for 161 homes on the site in October 2025 (with the proposals subsequently being revised upwards to 178 properties).
Somerset Council’s planning committee west (which handles major applications within the former Somerset West and Taunton area) gave the green light to these proposals on Tuesday (February 24) – allowing construction to begin later in the year.
The design of the spine road and the ‘station square’ which will greet passengers were fixed in separate applications which were approved by the same committee in March 2025.
Under Bloor’s proposals, the land nearest the station will be allocated for new commercial premises – the design of which will be handled via a separate reserved matters application.
In line with the outline planning permission, walking and cycling routes to the new homes will be provided, both along the entire length of the spine road and along the western boundary towards the B3187 Taunton Road (whose cycle links will be upgraded under a separate scheme funded by Active Travel England).
Green space will still be provided to the west of the new homes, with Bloor intending to plant more than 220 new trees and around 600 metres of native hedgerow.
The vast majority of the new homes will each have three or four bedrooms -and none of the properties will be affordable due to the cost of providing phosphate mitigation (as agreed within the outline planning permission).
The spine road, attenuation ponds and active travel links will be implemented in the first phase of the construction, followed by the homes north of the spine road and finally homes to the south.
Councillor Andy Hadley (Conservative, Minehead) praised the amended proposals when the planning committee west convened in Taunton on Tuesday afternoon (February 24).
He said: “I really can’t see an awful lot wrong with it, to be fair.
“I know there was a little bit of controversy over the spine road and where the priority would be turning into the site.
“I know Bloor was looking to buy a piece of land off Lidl in order to improve things – did they manage to resolve that, or are we just making it a difficult corner?”
Simon Fox, the council’s major projects planning officer, responded: “The situation is more or less the same as it was last year, insofar as it’s unlikely we will get the continuous access – in other words, the T-junction will remain as it is.
“Lidl hadn’t built its stretch of the spine road to the required adoptable standards. It’s taken six months or more to rectify that – members may have noticed the road being relaid over the last few months, and it will now be adopted as part of the wider spine road site.
“Lidl remains open to a conversation about Bloor taking a metre’s worth of land in order to provide a compliant cycle connection out of the site, but they weren’t willing to confirm that 100 per cent until their own road issues were resolved.”
Councillor Gwilym Wren (Independent, Upper Tone) chimed in: “There’s a lot of near-misses there already, so it’s only going to be exacerbated when there are 178 houses and the station is working.
“If Lidl is not prepared to sell or release the land to improve the junction, that’s something we’re going to have to live with – but I suspect it’s something we’ll have to deal with at some point in the future.”
Councillor Steven Pugsley (Conservative, Dulverton and Exmoor) added: “This is as good as it is going to be, and I commend Mr Fox for all the work he’s done on this.”
The committee voted unanimously to approve the plans after around an hour’s debate.
Construction on the spine road will begin “in the coming weeks”, with contractors aiming to complete the route and the foundations of the ‘station square’ by September.
Network Rail will submit its own planning application in the near-future for the railway station, car park and associated infrastructure, which will be subject to a separate committee decision.
The new station is expected to be operational by late-2028, along with its sister station in Cullompton over the border in Devon.
The council will make a separate decision in the coming months on plans for 320 homes on Wardleworth Way to the north of the planned station site, which if approved will deliver a crucial section of the Grand Western Greenway active travel link between Wellington and Taunton.