The Royal Horticultural Society & North West in Bloom Awards 2016 were held in Southport again this year. At last weeks event three stations on the South Fylde Line and two on the West of Lancashire Lines received accolades.
St. Anne’s-on-the-Sea, Lytham and Ansdell & Fairhaven on the South Fylde Line all received Level 4 – Thriving awards for their stations and Croston and Meols Cop in the West of Lancashire took Level 4 – Thriving and Level 5 – Outstanding awards respectively. 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 their local 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.
Craig Harrop, Stakeholder Manager Northern commented: “we have many brilliant adoption groups across our network including the various Friends of Stations groups along the South Fylde and West of Lancs Lines, 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”.
Richard Watts, Chair of Community Rail Lancashire Ltd. and Secretary of both the South Fylde Line & West of Lancs CRPs added: “That these stations 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!”