Who to contact re dangerous Station Approach.

[whole diary]

[MalBW]

Hi All

I am hoping someone here may be able to help me as Great Western themselves cannot even be bothered to respond to Emails.

The approach road to my local station has a 20 - 30 metre stretch that has between 25 and 40 potholes, ranging from 1cm to 5cm deep.

Due to vehicles parking on one side of the road it is impossible to use that stretch of road ( which is a 2 way through / access road) without passing over this section and hanging on to the steering death.  It is probably the worse section of highway I have seen for some time.

Not only is it causing damage to vehicles but cyclists are at risk, especially in the dark, and I have witnessed pedestrians tripping and falling there on a number of occasions.

Network Rail have confirmed this is the responsibility of First Great Western and not the local Highways, but having sent 3 emails to them in the past 5 weeks and not had a response I am beginning to wonder if First Great Western actually give a monkeys about public safety on this access road.

Any information would be much appreciated.

[MalBW]

Sorry should have read "hanging on to the steering wheel for grim death"

[grahame]

Hi All

...

The approach road to my local station

...

Hi, Welcome to the forum.  I do read that Network Rail have pointed you to FGW^▸ (First Great Western) ... but sometimes we find that things get pointed onward to others.   If you can tell us which station, we may be able to give a better reply and there's a slim chance we might even know some 'history'.   My own local station - Melksham - for example has a local council station approach and we know exactly where the boundary to Network Rail owned and FGW managed station land is, and then where it becomes Network Rail who look after things themselves.

[MalBW]

Hi,  It;s Bridgwater Station.  I did speak with Network Rail initially who were very helpful and after checking their records told me this was FGWs^▸ (First Great Western) responsibility.

I know historically from locals that "The Railway" has always been responsible. 

[grahame]

I know one particular member who may have been involved in some stuff at Bridgwater ... though he's not around at the moment. 

I know historically from locals that "The Railway" has always been responsible.

That's a useful indicator, but not proof.   A lot of lots (!) of land were deemed surplus to rail requirements when British Rail was being broken up, and over following years most of them were sold.  At least one to my knowledge has been brought back into railway use on the "road side" of the station.  Those that were not sold were transferred - very recently to (I think) the Highways Agency. 

[JayMac]

MalBW. Have you tried the local press? Perhaps forward some photographs of the potholes to the Bridgwater Mercury or Somerset County Gazette, along with your concerns, and see if they can't shame the landholder into fixing them. If they're not willing to print an article there's always the letters page.

[MalBW]

That is my next move.  In my last email to them ( which I also copied to my useless local MP^▸ (Member of Parliament) who has not responded), I informed them that if they did not have the common courtesy to respond at least, I would contact the local press.  I really wanted to establish before I did that they were definitley responsible, rather than have them say to the contrary.

Somerset Highways have confirmed it is not theirs and so have Network Rail but as pointed out earlier in the thread, that may just be passing the buck.

I'm tempted to put a sign up on the approach road advising folk to check their suspension and send any repair bills to FGW^▸ (First Great Western).  There are a "team" of workers tarting up the station frontage at the moment, I was going to ask them but I suspect they are just contractors.

[RichardB]

Who have you e-mailed at FGW^▸ (First Great Western), MalBW?   Have you been in touch with the Station Manager?

[MalBW]

I emailed the support email which is the only one I could find.  Never thought about the Station Manager, that would be worth a try.

[Oxman]

As I recall, FGW^▸ (First Great Western) is responsible for overall maintenance and safety of the station but, as the lessor of the station, NR^» (Network Rail - home page) is responsible for maintenance of the fabric and repair of any faults reported to them by FGW!

The way it works is that the Station Manager reports the fault to the FGW property department, which decides if it is a fault that should be repaired by its own contractor or one which is covered by NR, and passes on the fault report as appropriate. A road with pot holes would definitely be referred to NR, which would send out an engineer to inspect it. There are various response levels, and this would probably be categorised at the lowest level.

If the engineer decides it should be fixed (and, from experience, there is no certainty that a fault such as this will be regarded as serious enough to require repair), then it will be scheduled for repair, again, according to the priority assigned to it by the engineer. It can take weeks or months for the repair to take place.

Anyway, as you emailed Customer Services, they will have contacted the station manager and asked for a reply. The Station Manager will have reported the fault, if it had not already been reported, and will be working through Property Department to chase NR for a fix. This can be time consuming. When the Station Manager knows the position (and that might only be decided after some "debate"), he/she will advise customer services who will respond to you. Customer services will also chase the Station Manager if they do not get a reply within in a set period.

So, providing you have received an email acknowledgement from customer services, the process should be in motion. If you haven't, try calling them.

[MalBW]

I have'nt had a response or acknowledgment from any of my emails.  I did try ringing but after being on hold for 27 minutes lost the will to live to be honest.

I think I will go in and see if I can get any sense from the station manager on Monday.

[JayMac]

You'll be unlikely to find the Station Manager at Bridgwater. He or she will be responsible for a number of stations on that line. For Bridgwater I believe the Station Manager is based in Weston-super-Mare.

[RichardB]

I have'nt had a response or acknowledgment from any of my emails.  I did try ringing but after being on hold for 27 minutes lost the will to live to be honest.

I think I will go in and see if I can get any sense from the station manager on Monday.

The Station Manager is, I believe, the North Somerset one and is based at Temple Meads.  The station staff at Bridgwater should be able to give you his contact details.  If there is a problem, one of the moderators here, Chris from Nailsea, should be able to help too as the SM is the same for both stations.

[bobm]

Their details should be on the Welcome board outside the station.

[MalBW]

Excellent - many thanks for the info