Hello All

Hope you are all well.

I Just wanted to let you all know that I posted the petition and signatures to Great Western Railway. Their Managing Director has replied informing me that they will be employing 2 additional members of staff in the regional cover staff team who are responsible for providing cover staff for Yeovil Pen Mill if the permanent staff are unavailable (eg due to holidays or illness). The first of the new members of staff will start on the 3rd March and they are interviewing for the second position this week.

GWR emphasise that the new members of staff won’t be based permanently at Yeovil Pen Mill but they hope that by increasing the size of the regional cover staff team the station will have better chances of being allocated cover staff when needed. They also state there is still no guarantee the station will be staffed it’s scheduled staffing hours and if colleagues leave this will present a challenge.

GWR have not responded to the request on the Petition to have a Manager for the station based either on site or closer than Westbury.

While it is not everything I’d hoped for I realise I can’t force GWR to do things and I’m thankful and grateful to them that they will employ the two additional members of staff for the regional cover team. This news has left me cautiously optimistic and I may try making some journeys with them again from the station when this is in place. Hopefully it will lead to more consistent positive experiences for all of us and there will be a reduction in the amount of instances when the station is unstaffed during it’s scheduled staffing hours.

The petition will remain closed for now but if anyone wants/needs to communicate with me please feel free to e-mail yeovilpenmillpetition@gmail.com . I would be especially interested to hear from any of you if you turn up at the station when it should be staffed and find it not to be so. According to the GWR website the station should be staffed Monday to Friday 07:20 to 18:25, Saturday 07:20 to 14:10 and Sunday 14:30 to 17:00. I hope I haven’t broken any of change.org rules by putting the e-mail address on here but I have specifically created a new e-mail address for people to contact me regarding this matter so I haven’t given out any of mine or anyone else’s personal information.

I also just wanted to let you all know there is a message on the National Rail website stating that tomorrow (Friday 6th February) Yeovil Pen Mill station will be staffed from 07:45am instead of 07:20am - while this may not seem much difference time wise it does mean the station won’t be staffed for the 07:35 train in Bristol direction or the 07:33 train in Weymouth direction. 

Thank you all for your support - without this I doubt we would be where we are today with GWR hopefully allocating additional resources to the station.

Take care and best wishes for now

Kath