ON the face of it, news that the estimated costs of building a Parkway railway station outside Worcester have risen could be seen as the latest blow to a concept which has been discussed for more than three decades.

Certainly, we've been given pause for thought by the words of Councillor Tom Wells, the county council's transport spokesman, that the price for supplying a station with four platforms could be at least £10m.

Initial discussions had revolved around a figure of £6m, with the idea that there would be somewhere in the region of a million passenger movements a year through a station at Norton.

Now, too, the projected number of passenger journeys has been scaled down after detailed research in other areas of the country, where railway stations have been competing with motorway traffic to carry commuters.

But none of this should mean that the Parkway project is dead duck. A 'can do' attitude must prevail to make sure it's built.

The reason is simple - the road system, with its devastating impact on the environment throughout the country, is close to breaking point.

Just consider the amount of commuter traffic which trundles up and down the motorway to Birmingham.

It takes only a little imagination to realise the environmental benefits of shifting some of that traffic on to the rail system. A Worcester Parkway station would, we're convinced, have many peak-time travellers turning off the motorway at Whittington.

A feasibility study has already revealed that the public would use an out-of-town station.

What's needed now is for the county council to keep its nerve and spearhead the campaign for the station, which would, at long last, tap the Worcestershire community directly into the nation's inter-city rail network.