The Annual General Meeting of the West of Lancashire Community Rail Partnership was held in Southport on Thursday 8 May 2025.
The Chair, Stephen Benge welcomed everyone to the meeting especially Sarah Morgan who has recently been appointed as Northern’s Regional Community & Sustainability Manager.
First on the agenda was a report from Owain Roberts, Northern Regional Stakeholder Manager Central & West and Sarah Morgan. The presentation covered the following items:
+ Northern’s targets: Punctuality 90% cancellations 2%.
+ Performance Improvement Programme: A focus on working towards a stable 7- day railway.
+ Training levels: The levels have increased and are improving staff availability on the network.
+ A new trains programme has been initiated and is bring commissioned in 3 Lots – Lot 1 EMUs (electric multiple units), Lot 2 MMUs (multi-mode multiple units), Lot 3 BEMUs (battery electric multiple units).
+ Highlighted some of the community rail initiatives Northern has worked on with CRL, the WofLCRP and station partnerships including the new planters at Hoscar and Bescar Lane, artwork at Parbold, the Backtrack campaign etc. Owain thanked the station partnerships for their continued work.
Stephen Benge commented that some of the current trains on the line do not facilitate bikes. OR confirmed that they try to provide this facility but are limited by the types of trains in use.
Railway200: If friend’s groups would like bunting or items to celebrate Railway200, there are packs available and station groups can access funding for the items they require through the Northern’s Station Adopters fund. SM will ask Martin Keating to provide an update on Railway 200 celebration packs at the Station Adopters meeting on 27th May 2025. More details at https://railway200.co.uk/about-railway-200/toolkit/.
The Northern presentation can be downloaded on this link Northern Presentation
Next item was Stephen Benge with his Chair’s Report for the year, this covered the following topics:
+ SB referred to the tragic events that happened in Southport last July – previous WofLCRP Chair, Marian Atkinson (Leader of Sefton Council) had put the CRP in touch with the recovery team and the CRP and CRL are working on contributing to the recovery longer term.
+ During CR Week 2024 a group of ladies from Rufford made the trip to Accrington (West to East). A reciprocal visit following the 2023 visit of the Stations of Welcome group from Accrington to Rufford.
+ The partnership sponsored a basketball event at Liverpool 1 in June 2024.
+ The partnership has continued to promote access to Mere Sands Wood and Martin Mere by rail, especially the footpath link from Burscough Bridge to Martin Mere.
+ Re-accreditation of the CRP was successful and thank you to everyone involved in this, including the contributions of station groups.
+ There will be various events around Railway 200 this year. SB, who saw a new children’s book by local author called ‘Wrong Tracks’, has arranged for the author to visit Rufford CE Primary on 5th June to talk about the book and following this, the Year 6 group will go by train to Lancashire Archive (1st July).
+ All station adopter groups have been invited to bring representatives (2 per station group) to a special station adopters’ event at Lancashire County Council offices on 27th May.
+ SB remembered Sandra Gregory, an active member at Rufford Friends group who has sadly died recently.
+ SB thanked everyone involved with the WofLCRP, both those who supported the Partnership as part of their jobs, and those volunteers who give their time and skills.
Next was the business element of the meeting and the minutes from the 2024 Annual General Meeting were approved by all present.
The election of officers for the next year took place and Stephen Benge (Chair), Peter Hillsdon (Vice Chair) and Richard Watts (Secretary) were all re-elected nem con.
Following the election of officers Richard Watts gave an update on the Activity Plan (click here to download xxxxx) and covered these points:
+ The Annual Report 2024 is available online https://indd.adobe.com/view/1ba4cb80-13e0-47b2-b01a-d3b96df2e35c , as is the new CRL leaflet https://communityraillancashire.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/CRL-Generic-Leaflet-Mar-2025.pdf .
+ Noted that he is conversations with the team working with the communities around the tragic events in Southport – this is a long-term process.
+ There is a regular dialogue with Martin Mere to encourage more people to travel by train. Martin Mere will be joining CRL on 22nd May during Community Rail Week at the Network Rail event at Manchester Piccadilly station. Partners invited to visit the CRP stands.
+ New mini timetables for the Preston to Ormskirk line will shortly be available for distribution. The one for the Clitheroe Line has been expanded to include some bus links. RW asked if this would be useful for the Preston – Ormskirk timetable and if so which ones?
+ Referred to the ‘Northern Rail Heritage’ book written by Paul Salveson and linked to Railway 200. This is being distributed to schools.
Caroline Holden, Community Rail Development Officer with CRL added:
+ She had recently attended the funeral of Sandra Gregory; not only an active friend of Rufford station but with a lifetime commitment to her village.
+ Community Payback has confirmed that it will start back supporting the friend’s groups in the Rufford car park area and at Burscough Junction disused platform commencing on Tues 20th May. Paul Riley the manager of West Lancs CP has been put in touch with both friend’s groups to arrange the priorities for their work.
+ Rufford Friends are creating leaflets to promote walks from the station and have a newly erected leaflet boxes on the platforms.
Katie Douglas then gave an update on the work of the Education Team:
+ Sophia Sanderson has been appointed to the CRL Education Team.
+ The team has worked with over 3000 young people.
+ A wide range of activities are offered by the Education Team:
+ Try The Train (TTT) provides a structured introduction to journey planning and using the railway. For more information visit https://trythetrain.org.uk/.
+ There is funding available for TTT in West Lancashire and partners were asked for possible groups to approach. Beth Nolan is assisting with delivery which has so far been with groups in the Preston area. If you would like to suggest a group contact Catherine Kingdom. Her email address is catherine.kingdom@communityraillancashire.co.uk
+ KD is working on a research project with UClan for Great British Railways around careers and travel behaviours.
+ More information about the work of the CRL education team can be found by visiting https://trained.website/
This concluded the meeting and the next meeting is scheduled for Thursday 10 July 2025 and will be an online meeting using Microsoft Teams