Albrighton Station Refurbishment.
Notes.
Civic Society Meets Rail Industry.
R
efurbishment
to Albrighton Station is promised and additional car park proposed
The
Station.
As
discussed at the October 2009 Civic Society meeting, we are supporting
the Albrighton Parish Council (APC) action led by Cllrs Peter Illes and
David Beechey to try to get the station and its surroundings repaired and
smartened up.
On
12th May the Chairman and Secretary joined Peter to meet London Midland Trains (LMT),
Network Rail (NR) and Shropshire Council Rail Policy Officer at LMT
office in Birmingham to express Albrighton’s request that action be
taken. We were well received.
NR
had made a survey of their platforms, footbridge and rail-over-road bridge
which they tabled. They agreed to carry out the refurbishment of the site
by a deadline of March 2013 and expected the work to be carried out in
the summer of 2012. The cost of the work is about £1 million being footbridge
£370k, Platforms £450k and Rail/road bridge £180k.
Unfortunately,
as the Station building itself (on the Shrewsbury bound platform) was
sold and is now privately owned by a person in Birmingham, NR were
emphatic that they would not buy it back. The Station building appears
to be deteriorating. All attempts of correspondence with the owner
by APC and ourselves have not even obtained a reply. After discussion,
it would seem that the only way to improve the situation is for the
building to be bought from the present owner and brought into some
kind of use – to obtain a purchase seems difficult, as the owner does
not respond, and what sort of use? We would be pleased to have any suggestions.
Albrighton
Station Parking.
We
have for some time been concerned about the lack of parking and the
effect on the viability of the station because of this. Albrighton Parish Council had attempted to lease the land adjacent to the access ramp at
an affordable price but without success. The Society had taken another
look to see if the NR land at the other side of the access ramp could
be used – i.e. the slope between the ramp and Station Rd. A retaining wall would be needed
alongside Station Rd to allow the space between it and the ramp to
be filled in to provide an additional parking area of about 500 sq.m.
A reinforced concrete wall would be very expensive but we have proposed
a solution of a strengthened earthworks, effectively a reinforced steep
slope with a face angle of about 600, which is much less expensive at about 25% of the cost of a concrete wall solution
and with a more pleasing vegetated/grassed face which will be a “green
solution”. The Society produced a drawing of this proposal which was
received with interest by the LMT/NR/SC meeting on 12th May – if such a scheme was acceptable it is hoped that funding may be available
from several sources and Shropshire Council felt that they may be able
to contribute, possibly up to £30,000. The drawing may be seen on this
website and in the Society file in the Library – please let us have any comments. We are taking next steps to progress the matter.
The
full minutes of the meeting may be seen in the separate document on this
website. A further meeting will be held with London Midland Trains, Network
Rail (NR) and Shropshire Council Rail Policy Officer in the autumn to try
to ensure the matter is progressed.
Copyright (c) 2013 ALBRIGHTON and district CIVIC SOCIETY