Someone on high has just realised that Britain’s railway stations are in an appallingly bad state, and that this doesn’t reflect well on the country.
The [Public Accounts] committee’s chairman, Tory MP Edward Leigh, said: “Far too many small and medium-sized stations are threatening places, with poorly-lit, graffiti-covered passages and platforms, vandalised facilities and no staff on hand.
“As it is, a large number of Britain’s railway stations are a poor advertisement for our country.”
The reason our railway stations are in such a grotty condition is because British citizens vandalise them. So, too bloody right they’re a poor advertisment for our country. But they’re an accurate one.
The local railway station where I grew up (Bridgwater, in the heart of cider country, in case you were wondering) was in a shocking state a decade ago. A beautiful, old Victorian station, it suffered from the twin problems of being both difficult to fence off from vandals, and from having an overabundance of large panes of glass incorporated into its design. You can guess what happened next.
Happily though, the Queen deigned one day to stop ever so briefly at Bridgwater railway station en route to an official visit to Devon, the next county. Her whole visit was for the grand total of about 20 minutes, I believe. But the prospect of utter humiliation managed to spur the local council, or railway authorities, or whoever is actually responsible for keeping railway stations looking pretty, into repainting the station, and replacing all the shattered windows.
The station looked lovely when the Queen came.
A year later, it didn’t.
One of my local stations actually featured on the news spot covering this on BBC’s lunchtime news. Fame at last for Hackney.