Northern Stations Receive Awards

(updated release)

The Royal Horticultural Society & North West in Bloom Awards 2016 have been held in Southport again this year. At last week's event several Lancashire stations received accolades.

The South Fylde Line stations at St. Anne’s-on-the-Sea, Lytham and Ansdell & Fairhaven all received Level 4 – Thriving awards for their stations. This is down to the hard work of the Friends of Station Groups who carry out cleaning, painting and planting at the stations.

All the members of the friends groups are volunteers and their time and endless enthusiasm is much appreciated by the South Fylde Line Community Rail Partnership and Northern, the local train operator. The work the volunteers carry out helps make the stations a pleasant environment to wait for a train and also makes the station a gateway to the local area for visitors arriving by rail and makes them feel very welcome.

Richard Watts, Chair of Community Rail Lancashire Ltd. and Secretary of the South Fylde Line CRP, commented: “That three stations in such close proximity on the South Fylde line have won these awards is outstanding and is tribute to all the time the volunteers put in week in week out. Well done and keep up the hard work!”

The station in nearby Poulton-le-Fylde won a Gold award in the Best Station category, while there was also recognition for Meols Cop station, which received an Outstanding award for the "It's Your Neighbourhood" category.

Craig Harrop, Stakeholder Manager at Northern, commented: “We have many brilliant adoption groups across our network who do an amazing job making our stations attractive and pleasant environments for our customers. I am really pleased that their hard work has been recognised by the RHS as it is well deserved”.