The West of Lancashire Community Rail Partnership (WoLCRP) held their quarterly management group meeting last week and part of the agenda was an update on the Action Plan. This covered abroad range of topics and some of these can be seen below:
Pupils from St John’s RC Primary School at Burscough Junction Station
Restoring Your Railway
Two bids were submitted to round 3 of the Department of Transport’s Restoring Your Railway Ideas Fund for a new station at Midge Hall and the restoration of the Burscough Curves. Unfortunately, neither was successful when the Government announced the successful applications. It is unlikely there will be any further bidding rounds.
Accreditation
The re-accreditation meeting took place on the 13th October, 2021 and I am delighted to report that Community Rail Lancashire (CRL) and the 4 Lancashire CRPs have been successfully re-accredited for a further year. For more details go to: https://communityraillancashire.co.uk/news/reaccreditation-success-for-2021-22/
Education
A separate report setting CRL’s recent educational engagement activity can be seen on this link Education Report January 2022 update
Locally CRL continues to work with Burscough St John’s RC Primary School and is working on a new project with Rufford CE Primary School known as Rufford Station to Mere Sands Wood. The CRP is also looking to develop a project with a primary school in Croston.
Manchester Recovery Task Force
CRL and the 4 Lancashire CRPs submitted a response to the Manchester Recovery Task Force consultation on the proposed timetables for December 2022. Copies of this can be forwarded on request.
Platforms 3C & 4C at Preston station
Northern has confirmed that the services to/from Colne and Ormskirk will continue to use platforms 3C & 4C at least until HS2 remodelling of platforms 3 & 4 take out the 2 bays. To improve the environment at this ‘lonely’ part of the station CRL & Lancashire CC have worked on an application to the Avanti Community Rail fund for the provision of seats, planters and information panels. At the time of writing this report the application to Avanti had been submitted and a decision awaited.
Explore Lancashire by Rail
This is the name being given to a series of mini films describing easy walks that can be reached using our local lines. There are currently four films available to watch, see Collectors Cornet for links, they show:
+ A walk from Rose Grove along the Padiham Greenway,
+ A walk from Burscough Junction to Rufford along the Leeds & Liverpool and Rufford Branch canals,
+ A linear walk from Lytham to St Anne’s, and
+ The launch of Community Rail Week at Burscough Junction.
Other films in the pipeline include a walk from Darwen station to Darwen Tower
Friends of Stations
A number of stations on the West of Lancashire routes have Friends of Station groups including; Bescar Lane, Burscough Stations, Croston, Meols Cop, Parbold, Pemberton and Rufford. All the groups continue to do excellent work looking after their local station.
You can download the full quarterly report on this link WoLCRP Quarterly Report January 2022 and also the quarterly education report on this link Education Report January 2022 update