Oxford St Manchester: Tel 0161 238 7071 TravelWatch Email: [email protected] Website: www.travelwatch-northwest.org.uk Correspondence address 11 Harvelin NORTHWEST Park, Todmorden, OL14 6HX promoting quality public transport.......... THE NORTH WESTs WEAKEST LINK RAIL STATIONS Building on the governments stations champions report: TravelWatch NorthWests investigations & recommendations Editor: LILLIAN BURNS FeBruary 2010 North West Public Transport Users Forum Community Interest Company trading as TravelWatch NorthWest Company No. 6181713 Registered Office: 2 Park House Drive, Heversham, Cumbria LA7 7EG The North Wests Weakest Link major rail stations: TW NWs investigations & recommendations TRAVELWATCH NORTHWEST MISSION STATEMENT AND AIMS TravelWatch NorthWests mission statement is as follows: Facilitating an integrated and seamless quality public transport network for North West England The vision of TravelWatch NorthWest (TW NW) is to champion the interests of public transport users in the North West so that the network can become: x Accessible to everyone x Affordable and socially inclusive x Available where and when it is needed x Acceptable to all x Attractive to users Key objectives are: 1 To give users a platform to express their concerns and needs 2 To contribute to the development of regional transport strategies 3 To produce influential best practice reports based on evidence 2 The North Wests Weakest Link major rail stations: TW NWs investigations & recommendations CONTENTS Page Paras Foreword 4 - 5 1.0 - 1.4 Extract/ key recommendations from Better Stations report 6 2.0 - 2.5 Introduction 7 3.0 - 3.4 Recommendations of TravelWatch NorthWest 8 4.0 - 4.6 Individual assessments of the Weakest Link stations: The Station Champions priorities for investment in the N.W. Manchester Victoria 9 - 11 5.0 - 5.14 Crewe 12 - 14 5.15 - 5.31 Warrington Bank Quay 15 - 17 5.32 - 5.43 Preston 18 - 20 5.44 - 5.61 Wigan North Western 21 - 22 5.62 - 5.72 Liverpool Central 23 - 25 5.73 - 5.90 Stockport 25 - 27 5.91 - 5.99 Carlisle 28 - 31 5.101 - 5.110 Chester 32 - 34 5.120 - 5.133 TravelWatch North Wests additional candidates: Manchester Oxford Road 35 5.134 - 5.139 Bolton 36 - 37 5.140 - 5.149 Blackpool North 37 - 38 5.150 - 5.157 Conclusions 39 6.0 - 6.5 ContriButors 40 Annex 1: Detailed recommendations from Better Stations report 41 - 43 3 The North Wests Weakest Link major rail stations: TW NWs investigations & recommendations 1. FOREWORD 1.1 No less than seven of the 10 worst major railway stations in England and Wales are in the North West of England according to a government-commissioned report, Better Rail Stations 1. Published by the Department for Transport (DfT), the report was drawn up by two Station Champions who were appointed by Lord Adonis, Secretary of State for Transport, ie. Sir Peter Hall, Professor of Planning at University College London and President of the Town & Country Planning Association and Chris Green, non-executive director of Network Rail, former Chief Executive of Virgin Trains and former chairman of the Railway Forum. Lord Adonis accepted their report and has committed a new £50 m. fund to improving the 10 worst stations, which he wants to see supplemented by contributions from commercial and third parties and train operating companies. TravelWatch NorthWest (TW NW) has produced this report in support of these aspirations (aided by mystery shoppers - which also was the modus operandi used by the Station Champions). TW NW is also pressing for the prioritisation of some other worthy candidate stations. 1.2 The Stations Champions worked with a number of key stakeholders including Cycling England and Passenger Focus. Their report highlighted the category of station which Network Rail class as Regional Hub B as being most in need of urgent attention due to their high footfall. Their list of 30 worst-scoring stations in this category in terms of the physical fabric of the buildings and their environments included nine in total in the North West England. Manchester Victoria was classed as the worst of all, validating a critical report that TW NW produced on Manchester Stations earlier last year 2 . The Manchester Stations report by TW NW, which features the Oxford Road station frontage on the cover (left) and also reports on Victoria, Piccadilly, Deansgate, Salford Central & Salford Crescent stations is downloadable from the study reports part of the TW NW website at: www. travelwatch-northwest.org. uk or go to: http://users/cooptel.net/ ianwatson/nwptuf/ Manstns_209.pdf 1 Better Rail Stations, an independent review presented to Lord Adonis, Secretary of State for Transport, by Chris Green MA Oxon, FCIT and Prof. Sir Peter Hall FBA Hon MRTPI, Nov 2009 2 Passengers Perceptions of Manchesters Stations by David Butterworth for TW NW Feb 2009 4 The North Wests Weakest Link major rail stations: TW NWs investigations & recommendations Foreword continued 1.3 The Station Champions poorest scoring B category stations (worst first) were: 1. Manchester Victoria 2. Clapham Junction 3. Crewe 4. Warrington Bank Quay 5. Barking 6. Preston 7. Wigan North Western 8. Luton 9. Liverpool Central 10. Stockport 28th worst was Carlisle and 29th worst was Chester The east side of Manchester Victoria station showing its stripped canopy with props July 2009 1.4 To this sorry list TravelWatch NorthWest would add Bolton, Blackpool North and Manchester Oxford Road because of the volume of passenger movements they facilitate and the shortfalls they each have. TW NW argues in this report that they should be regarded as major stations and should be prioritised for improvement with the others. 5 The North Wests Weakest Link major rail stations: TW NWs investigations & recommendations 2. EXTRACT FROM THE BETTER STATIONS REPORT 2.1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 2.2 Only two thirds of customers are satisfied with Britains stations. This is a mediocre result, and a demanding service industry should be seeking to lift this to at least the Overall Satisfaction level of 80%. The passengers first priority is clearly the journey itself; but a smart, modern station is an important adjunct which can make or break the public transport experience. 2.3 The customer requirement is for easy access through a safe and pleasant station envi- ronment. The cause of the dissatisfaction is not face-to-face service which is highly rated when provided but the physical station facilities, which are only scored at 50% satisfaction. If stations are to be improved, the solution must lie in finding affordable ways of bringing their facilities and environment up to a consistent modern standard. 2.4 We recognise that additional funding will be very limited up to 2014 and we propose that the time is used to introduce minimum station standards into every new franchise and exploit all existing funding channels to prioritise the problem stations we have highlighted. Beyond 2014, we propose a ten year catch-up period for stations to bring them up to the standard of the modern train fleets. 2.5 We suggest that this two-part strategy is delivered in the following ways: 2.6 Key Recommendations Ǥ ͺͲΨ Ǥ Ǥ Ǥ ǡ Ǥ Ǥ ʹͷΨʹͲͳͶʹͶ͉ͺͲͲ Ǥ͉͸ͲͲ ǡ Ǥ Ǥ ͷǡͲͲͲ ǡͳͲǡͲͲͲ Ǥ Ǧ Ǥ Ǥ ǡǡ Ǥ ǡ Ǥ [Extract from the Executive Summary of the Better Stations report, Nov. 2009, page 5] 6 The North Wests Weakest Link major rail stations: TW NWs investigations & recommendations 3. INTRODUCTION 3.1 TravelWatch NorthWest (TW NW) welcomes the fact that the inadequacy of the majority of the major stations in this region has been recognised. Serious modal shift from cars to public transport is not going to be achieved until the comfort levels of using public transport are raised across the board. In the case of rail, this means not just the rolling stock but the places where passengers have to wait to use the trains and where they disembark, ie. the stations. Even taking into account the fact that most peoples expectations of railway stations in the UK are quite low and most users are quite stoical about it, what they have to put up with is simply not good enough. 3.2 The infrastructure of station buildings was the lowest priority at the time British Rail was privatised and disaggregated in 1996 and they have continued to suffer ever since due to short term train operator franchises. Of the 2,500 stations in Britain, only the top-rated ones - the 25 regarded as National Hubs (ie. 0.01%) are directly the responsibility of Network Rail. In this region that includes Manchester Piccadilly which received a major remodelling prior to the Commonwealth Games and which, apart from continued overcrowding problems on platforms 13 and 14, is now a flagship station. And Liverpool Lime Street whose up-grade was completed late last year. Visually and functionally the improvements to Liverpool Lime Street are very welcome but, unlike Piccadilly, it is not temperature controlled and on a bleak winters night its slightly elevated position is as exposed to damp and cold air from the Mersey Estuary as buildings on the waterfront and it is bitterly cold in the station. Not an appealing proposition if a car is an alternative. 3.3 Other categories of railway stations have suffered from lack of investment and attention. Although Network Rail is the landlord, it has primarily been the responsibility of the Train Operating Companies and as the TOCs have had no certainty as to their long-term future, they have been loathe to invest more than absolutely necessary in infrastructure. Mean- while local authorities have found it difficult through their Local Transport Plans (LTPs) to apportion much funding to stations and the Regional Funding Allocation (RFA) structure has only recently been amended to make it possible for rail to benefit via that mechanism.