The man behind a closing transport group has warned that people should use Spalding Station or face losing that too.
George Scott, the chair and founder of the Spalding and Peterborough Transport Forum for the last 24 years, says he’s closing it due to a lack of interest.
And he’s warned the station could also be lost with footfall down, something he puts partly down to East Midlands Railway’s lack of use of the station.
He told a meeting of Spalding Town Forum last week that he was disappointed that the waiting room was no longer open after 2.30pm and that the toilets in the building had been out of operation since December.
“In the next few months we need to improve the station.” he said. “I’ve had a meeting with East Midlands Railway and we’ve eight or nine rooms that could be used in there for a community service.
“We’ve wanted to put a museum in there for over 24 years.
“We get improvements now and again but they’re very slow in being forthcoming.
“I’ve been approached for a health shop, a photographer’s show and a museum on the history of the railways.
“We’ve got to push East Midlands Railway.
“The gardens are looking brilliant now from what they were ten years ago, so there’s things we can do.”
Mr Scott claimed that one business had wanted to use one of the vacant buildings and spent £56,000 on the room but it fell through.
He also told the meeting that there would be no improvements to the main line such as electrification until at least 2030.
However he said he was pleased that trains were now available in the mornings at 7am, 8am and 9am with the ticket office still open from 6am to 2.30pm thanks to the recent campaign.
On the Spalding and Peterborough Transport Forum he said: “The public are quite apathetic until it affects them and by then it’s usually too late.
“Over the years with some excellent people we accomplished many good things but since the pandemic interest has declined and funding is more difficult.
“Of the great successes I’m pleased we’ve been able to make improvements around the station and made it more usable for those with mobility issues.
“The early morning train now has two carriages rather than one and there’s more early hours’ services.
“That’s just with the railway too as well as the work we’ve done on the buses and roads.”
