Transport chiefs are drawing up plans to build a new railway station in Inverness to serve the city’s biggest retail park.
The new stop-off could be created near the Inverness Shopping Park, improving access to the site, as well as enhancing links to the UHI campus and Stoneyfield Business Park.
Regional transport partnership Hitrans revealed the ambitious vision to the Press and Journal yesterday.
Bosses at the group said early feasibility work had been carried out, and that they hoped the new station could be opened between 2019 and 2024.
It would be built on the Inverness to Aberdeen line, by the straight level track at the shore, near the retail park.
The service is already due to be upgraded, with half-hourly peak trains scheduled to be introduced between Inverness and Elgin from December 2018.
Hitrans chiefs said that trains from Easter Ross could run through, connecting up the entire Inner Moray Firth area.
The group already reached a major milestone earlier this year as it unveiled long-awaited plans to build a new £2million rail station at Inverness Airport.
A planning application for the project is expected to be lodged in next few weeks, and modelling shows it could become the second busiest stop in the Highlands within 50 years.
The proposal for another new station on the line emerged just days after the Press and Journal revealed that the Scottish Prison Service is now assessing a site behind the retail park and Stoneyfield offices to see if it could become the location of a new £66million Inverness jail.
The move follows a decision to “pause” controversial plans to build the prison at Milton of Leys, and could strengthen a bid for a new station to serve the area.
Hitrans manager Frank Roach said: “We are working on a possible station at Seafield on the Inverness-Aberdeen line to serve UHI and the retail park, which will have half-hourly peak Inverness-Elgin trains from December 18, which could run through from Easter Ross, providing a cross city Invernet service serving the whole of the Inner Moray Firth.”
The cost of the project would depend on whether it was a single or double platform, which would be determined by whether it is decided to put double tracks into that section of the line.
Drew Hendry, MP for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey, welcomed the scheme last night.
“Obviously there are major improvements coming to the Aberdeen to Inverness line, including the new station at Dalcross, and another station at the retail park would be a fantastic addition and enhance the mobility of the entire population,” he said.
Mr Roach said the plan would be more viable that a suggestion to put in a new station on the rail line going south from Inverness to the central belt, stopping at the new UHI campus.
He said “problems” with such a proposal would include the gradient of the line, and the effect on slowing down services.
Inverness councillor Ken Gowans backed the retail park plan, saying: “Any improvements to connectivity gets people using public transport, so it would be very welcome.”
Inverness Chamber of Commerce chief executive Stewart Nicol said: “There’s quite a significant number of people, from a from a whole range of professions, working in that area.
“It would strengthen the rail links within the city and I think it would be a very creditable proposition to look at.”
