PLANS to reopen the second entrance to Salisbury Railway Station are being looked at by rail bosses.

£30,000 has been allocated to the project from South Western Railway's (SWR) Customer and Communities Improvement Fund with a £25,000 match from Wiltshire Council for a redesign in anticipation of a reopening.

The project was announced in a press release by SWR which also listed details for numerous projects across its service area, including improvements in Berkshire, Devon, Dorset, Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Greater London and Surrey.

The company is also granting £35,035 to the Samaritans for a project to “raise awareness and reduce rates of suicide in communities served by SWR.”

The north entrance of the station has been closed since 2009, soon after ticket barriers were installed at the main entrance to the station.

Fencing was also erected around the platforms in the same year. At the time, SWR cited the measures as an effort to cut down on fare dodgers, and said the second entrance was used by less than ten per cent of passengers. 

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A much coveted, 178-space car park on the other side of Fisherton Street received planning permission but never came to fruition. Had it been built, a condition of the planning permission granted to Network Rail would have required the north entrance to be reopened to allow for easier access from the car park to the station entrance.

As the car park was never built, the north entrance has remained shuttered for over a decade.

The restoration project remains in its very early stages, so no planned reopening date has yet been announced for the north entrance.

Councillor Caroline Thomas, Wiltshire Council’s cabinet member for transport, said: “It has been a long-term ambition of ours to reopen the northern entrance to Salisbury Railway Station to the public.

"The northern entrance is part of the wider masterplan for the railway station and is a scheme for SWR to deliver. We welcome this funding which will enable a feasibility study to be carried out. We will continue to support SWR and work with them to take this opportunity forward.”