Railway
Station Adoption
[posted
21/09/2007, updated 13/08/2008]
Radley
Railway Station may not be everyone's favourite
place at the moment, what with all the noise and mess.
Yet it could be made into a place to be proud of.
That is the message from First Great Western and Oxfordshire
County Council who have entered into a join venture
to get people to adopt their local station. Full details
of the scheme are given in the leaflet which can be
downloaded from the link below.
About
30 people attended a public meeting in the village
hall on Friday 14th September and, after airing their
gripes and concerns about the station and the service
in general, nevertheless gave their unanimous support
to the scheme, with a good number of people offering
to participate actively when the time comes.
The
meeting was addressed by Kim Higgs of First Great
Western and Adrian Saunders, Rail Development Officer
for Oxfordshire County Council, who explained the
ways the scheme might work and answered the many questions
put from the floor.
The
Parish Council will now take the matter to the next
stage, which is to establish a Group who will undertake
the activities that the Group considers appropriate
under the adoption scheme. It was stressed that local
people will not be expected to pay for station improvements
out of their own pockets; nor is this a way of maintaining
stations on-the-cheap. Local people will be able to
decide on how much or how little they are prepared
to do. The idea is to bring the station into the community
and make it into more that it otherwise would be if
it was minimally maintained as a place simply for
trains to stop at. Who knows, we might even be able
to get them to improve the service as well!
If
you would like to participate by becoming a member
of the Adoption Group, please contact the Clerk of
the Parish Council, who will ensure you receive information
about forming the group. Alternatively, keep a lookout
on this website (and this page) where further information
will be posted as and when it becomes available.
