The Management Committee of the West of Lancashire CRP met on Friday 20th January 2017 in the Town Hall in Southport.
Performance – Northern’s Regional Community and Sustainability Manager (West), Martin Keating, gave an update on performance for the CRPs two routes and also stressed the importance of station adoption groups.
Station Improvements – Craig Harrop, Client & Stakeholder Manager for the region spoke briefly about Northern’s Station Improvement Fund and noted that this would see works being carried out on stations in the West of Lancs over the next three years.
Burscough – It was noted that a bid for Seed Corn Funding from Arriva Rail North had been approved by the Community Rail Executive Group (ComREG) to help fund a possible development of the redundant Burscough Bridge Interchange building.
It was also recorded that there were still flooding issues on the car park at Burscough Junction station. WolCRP Chair Marion Atkinson has arranged another meeting to further discuss a solution to this problem.
Education – Daisy Chapman-Chamberlain, on of CRL’s Community Rail Education Development Officers, gave an update on her recent work. She reported that West End Primary School in Ormskirk were due to travel to Preston in March as part of the programme and would be using the facilities provided by Virgin West Coast Trains at the station.
Station Partnerships – it was reported that the award winning Friends of Croston Station had been successful in securing a grant from Arriva Rail North’s Station Adoption Fund for new planters for the station.
The Friends of Meols Cop were able to report that they had been awarded an ‘outstanding’ grade in the recent North West In Bloom awards in Southport. Unfortunately they also had to report that they were having some anti-social behaviour issues at the station and these were being dealt with by the British Transport Police.
The meeting was pleased to learn that there is group at Rufford who are keen to get involved and Roger Bell would be meeting up with them again to further develop their ideas. Roger was also hopeful that both Parbold and Hoscar stations might also be possibilities.