FoWS shortlisted for national Community Rail Award

FoWS are very excited to announce that our station art project has been shortlisted in this year’s Association of Community Rail Partnerships (ACoRP) Community Rail Awards, in the category of Community Art Schemes – Permanent Projects.

The scheme – designed by Mark Mennell and students from Salford City College, and funded by grants from Little Hulton & Walkden Community Committee, Salford City Council Recycle & Reward, and Northern – was unveiled at Walkden in May this year.

The ACoRP awards, which are now in their 13th year, recognise the important but often unsung work carried out by community rail partnerships and station adoption groups, amongst others, who provide a welcome social and economic contribution, with their activities, to their communities.

The winners will be revealed at the awards gala dinner and presentation evening held by ACoRP, at The Roundhouse in Derby on Thursday 5 October 2017.

Notes about ACoRP

Community rail is all about ensuring communities get the most from their railways, and promoting rail as a key part of sustainable, healthy travel. There are more than 50 community rail partnerships around Britain, working at a grassroots level along railway routes to connect the community with the train operator and other local partners. They deliver a range of activities to engage and benefit local people and support the development of the railway. More than 1,300 smaller community rail groups, such as station friends, work locally, often involving volunteers in ensuring the station is a welcoming and productive hub for the community.

The Association of Community Rail Partnerships is the membership body for community rail partnerships, representing over 80 community rail lines, and more than 1,300 local groups. ACoRP works to empower, support and champion the community rail movement. See acorp.uk.com, follow and tweet us @ACORPoffice, find us on Facebook and sign up to our monthly e-news ‘Train On Line’(http://bit.ly/tol17), to keep up to date with all that’s new in the world of community rail

Salford Rail Strategy prioritises key improvements for Walkden

Salford City Council have adopted a Rail Strategy to formally identify their aspirations for improvements to stations and services in the area. FoWS made a substantial contribution to the consultation process and are delighted to see most of our goals formally adopted by the council.

The strategy does not mean any of the improvements identified will automatically go ahead, but it places Salford in a great position compared to all the other Manchester region boroughs for presenting a structured improvement plan to the likes of Network Rail, Transport for Greater Manchester, and Rail North when funding streams become available.

FoWS welcome Salford’s proactive adoption of a rail strategy and believe it will be an important step towards realisation of our goals.

The strategy can be downloaded from Salford’s website here: please note the strategy is almost 100 pages long and the council have requested that a shorter version is produced for general distribution.

Among the top priorities identified by Salford are the following Walkden-related items:

• Work with TfGM to complete the development of the business case for funding to deliver disabled access at Walkden Station (as part of a wider development of the station and the area it serves).
• Six trains per hour at Salford Central Station including inter-regional services and at least 1tph to/from Manchester Airport (after the provision of Liverpool Line platforms);
• Through services to Manchester Piccadilly from the Wigan – Atherton – Salford Crescent Line. 
• Raising the Atherton line line speed to at least 75mph
• Withdrawal of Class 142 units.
• Electrification of the Atherton Line 
• Promote interchange improvements at Walkden station.

Section 4.15 of the report talks specifically about objectives for Walkden:

4.15.1 Salford City Council wishes to see progress of proposals to improve disabled access at Walkden station. Whilst there are no assurances from the rail industry and TfGM, the City Council looks forward to the eventual identification of funding and commencement of the work. However, the City Council wishes to see further coordinated and sustainable investment at Walkden including:

(i) The completion of a ‘park and ride’ facility at Walkden to incorporate car parking, a cycle hub and a cycle maintenance workshop.

(ii) The provision of a retail facility.

(iii) Improvements to the immediate area of the station including improvements to bus stops, taxi bays and drop off facilities, walking and cycle routes, road crossings and way-marking/signage.

4.15. Salford City Council is working with TfGM to develop proposals for a Park & Ride at Walkden, potentially funded by TfGM. The Salford Bolton Network Improvement (SBNI)  programme will also provide a series of highway improvements in the vicinity of the station.

 

Art project creators re-united at Walkden

Friends and supporters met at Walkden yesterday to formally celebrate the installation of our station art work with artist Mark Mennell, students from Salford City College, and representatives from Northern.

It was a chance for our members to thank the young people who helped produce the beautiful designs, and for many of the contributors who made the project possible to celebrate its successful completion.

Andy Barlow (Chair FoWS), Vicky Cropper (Community and Sustainability Manager, Northern), Nicola Worthington (Salford City College) and Mark Mennell (artist) beside a panel commemorating the old signal box at Walkden (and the day a Deltic visited Walkden in 1981!)

Artwork installed!

We are delighted to announce that Mark Mennell and the team from Carillion have installed our 10 art panels at the station this morning. We hope you will agree they make a huge, positive difference to the appearance and experience of using the station!

We would like to offer our sincere thanks to our financial donors – Salford City Council’s Recycle and Reward Scheme, Little Hulton and Walkden Community Committee, and Arriva Trains North.

Also thanks to the artist Mark Mennell and the students at Salford City College who assisted in the designs, Fay Flatt from Salford’s Neighbourhood team, and everyone at Northern who helped make this possible – principally Vicky Cropper, Lydia Hayes, Matthew Worman and Joan Nickson.

Walkden station artworks … a sneak preview

We are delighted to offer a sneak preview of a couple of the draft designs that artist Mark Mennell has produced for FoWS.

The designs form part of a series of 8 steel panels that will be attached to the walls of the stairway at the station.

We think the designs, produced by Mark in collaboration with Art & Design students at Salford City College are gorgeous and can’t wait to see them installed – hopefully in the not too distant future.

The Walkden station art project has been made possible with generous financial assistance from Salford City Council‘s Community Committee and Recycle/Reward programmes, and Arriva Rail North‘s Community Rail programme.

Car park plan revealed for Walkden station

We were delighted with the confirmation this week that Salford City Council have agreed to make the old council depot site on Chestnut Lane available to TfGM as a dedicated station car and bicycle park.

With the disruption caused to our neighbours by on-street parking, and the ever increasing problem of congestion-related pollution, we believe this is great news for passengers and residents alike.

FoWS have been working with TfGM and local councillors to bring this to fruition, and we want to say a huge “Thank You” to everyone who’s helped to make it happen.

Keeping public land in public ownership and utilising it for public good is not an easy trick to pull off these days, so a special thank you to City Mayor Paul Dennett, Walkden councillors Richard Critchley, Iain Lindley, and Roger Jones, and Owain Roberts from the Rail Team at TfGM !

Northern grant awarded for Walkden art project

We’re delighted to announce Northern have matched Salford’s Recycle & Reward grant of £1000 toward our station art project taking us to 2/3rds of our target budget. We have further applications in progress and hope to reach our target soon.

Keep following this blog for more news on progress and how anyone in Walkden can get involved in the design workshops !

AGM Agenda published

The agenda for our forthcoming AGM on 10th May is now available for download.

We’re delighted to welcome special guests from Northern, Transport for Greater Manchester, Salford’s Neighbourhood team, and Worsley Civic Trust. There will be an opportunity for the audience to ask questions.

In addition to learning about Arriva Rail North’s plans for improving the trains and services, we are also pleased to welcome the artist Mark Mennell who has recently worked with Friends of Patricroft Station to install some beautiful panels illustrating the area’s local history. Mark will help us come up with ideas for bringing some tailor-made art to Walkden station too.

All our meetings including the AGM are open to the public, and we welcome everyone with an interest in helping us improve the station.

Thank you from the Mayor of Salford

A nice letter from the Mayor thanking FoWS volunteers among the many others who gave up time to clean up the “dirty old town” last weekend 🙂

Clean for the Queen Thank you letter

Walkden gets a clean up

Many thanks to our brilliant volunteers Barbara, Jennifer, Cllr Critchley and Harry “The Chopper” who spent this morning litter picking and cutting back foliage in the street areas around the station. We removed 7 bags of general rubbish, 4 bags of cans & bottles for re-cycling, and 4 bags of grennery. We hope everyone enjoys the cleaner environment (at least for a little while !)

FoWS plan to hold more regular litter picks around the station in future.

Our thanks also to Fay at Salford City Council for providing litter pickers, gloves and bags.

Congratulations also to the students from Salford College who were out in force tidying Parr Fold Park.