​GTR pledges passenger benefits in £15m station investment programme

Life-saving heart restarters, LED lighting and landscaping are among the improvements being delivered by Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) during the first phase of an investment programme to directly benefit passengers.

Almost 60 of 274 stations served by Thameslink, Southern, Great Northern and Gatwick Express trains from as far afield as King’s Lynn and Brighton are to be completed by the spring (see list in editor’s notes).

The initial work has been selected from a list of projects identified during a consultation with 4,200 responses from local people into how money from a passenger benefit fund should be spent.

Improvements that are being finalised are likely to include LED lighting, repainting, toilet refurbishment and landscaping. At four stations – Knebworth, Potters Bar, Hadley Wood, Welwyn Garden City – GTR will pilot the introduction of life-saving automatic defibrillators as early as this month. If the trial is successful, then GTR intends to roll these out to as many of its stations as possible.

Further phases will follow which will look to provide additional platform shelters, extra seating, better toilets, landscaping and living walls, and water fountains, where bottles can also be refilled.

Keith Jipps, Infrastructure Director at GTR, said: “I’m delighted we are beginning to deliver real improvements for passengers at our stations. The consultation we carried out was a huge success and I’d like to thank the thousands of passengers, stakeholders and community members who took part.”

This first phase of work sees an investment of £1.2m from a passenger benefit fund of £15m. This is in addition to an existing investment of £15m which is being made in GTR stations, giving a total investment of £30m.

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Editor’s notes

• The £15m Passenger Benefit Fund was established to provide “tangible improvements for passengers” across the GTR network.
• More than 4,200 surveys were completed by passengers, rail user groups, councillors and other interested parties. A further 90 group submissions helped provide input for 96% of the 274 stations.
• A website dedicated to the fund was visited almost 24,000 times and the GTR team behind the scheme attended almost 70 meetings to talk to local people about their stations.
• Project managers have been consulting further with local groups and stakeholders to assess the feasibility of what people have requested. This is being used to finalise the individual projects at these first 59 stations, which are:

1.Aldington

2.Alexandra Palace

3.Appledore

4.Bayford

5.Bedford Midland

6.Biggleswade

7.Bishopstone

8.Brookman's Park

9.Catford

10.Cooden Beach

11.Coulsdon South

12.Cricklewood

13.Crofton Park

14.East Grinstead

15.Eastbourne

16.Edenbridge Town

17.Elstree & Borehamwood

18.Enfield Chase

19.Finsbury Park

20.Ford

21.Glynde

22.Gordon Hill

23.Grange Park

24.Hackbridge

25.Hadley Wood

26.Ham Street

27.Hatfield

28.Haydon's Road

29.Hertford North

30.Horley

31.Huntingdon

32.Hurst Green

33.King’s Lynn

34.Letchworth

35.Lingfield

36.Luton

37.Meldreth

38.Mitcham Junction

39.Newhaven Harbour

40.Palmers Green

41.Potters Bar

42.Riddlesdown

43.Royston

44.Sanderstead

45.Sandy

46.Selhurst

47.Shoreham

48.South Merton

49.St Neots

50.Stevenage

51.Sutton (Surrey)

52.Sutton Common

53.Tattenham Corner

54.Tulse Hill

55.Upper Warlingham

56.Welwyn Garden City

57.West Norwood

58.Whyteleafe

59.Woldingham