Railway Stations

Debate between Stephen McPartland and Lilian Greenwood

Tuesday 17th April 2012 Westminster Hall

[Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hood.

My constituency includes the rail stations of Stevenage and Knebworth, both operated by First Capital Connect. We have sought the debate today to illustrate some of our difficulties in achieving station improvements in small towns and cities throughout the country. I will focus predominantly on my constituency of Stevenage, but I know that other Members present wish to intervene.

Stevenage station opened on its new site back in 1973, which was a few years before I was born. That illustrates the age of the station. It is an important hub for Hertfordshire, with Stansted airport on one side and Luton airport on the other; many services to the north of the country run by East Coast trains leave Stevenage, and the station sees more than 4 million passenger movements a year, with Knebworth station seeing almost half a million a year. Stevenage is quite a large and important regional train service hub. Bearing that in mind, First Capital Connect will be operating a 100-day peak service before, during and just after the Olympics, as hundreds of thousands of people use stations in my constituency to travel to King’s Cross to get across London to the Olympics. I am also proud that we will welcome the Olympic torch to Stevenage on 8 July; I look forward to a large boost to our local economy as a result.

I take the opportunity to commend the present and the previous Government for the fantastic transformations to King’s Cross and St Pancras railway stations. Both are iconic. I commute into King’s Cross every single day, from Stevenage, which is less than 30 miles away. My personal experience is that the station has improved a great deal. A lot of scaffolding was up for many years, but it has now been cleared away and, once again, the sunlight can be seen. There are similarities with Gatwick airport, with its departure and arrival lounges, and the station is looking much better.

King’s Cross is a category A station, the gateway to London for my constituents and millions of others, and yet, of my stations, Stevenage is category C and Knebworth category E. The Minister might be anticipating a long moan about the lack of investment in local train stations by all Governments and expecting me to lament the challenges that my constituents face trying to travel less than 30 miles to London, negotiating their way through all the obstacles, but the journey experience for passengers from my area has improved over the past few years, mainly due to the thousands of extra seats available at peak times. Nevertheless, I would like to reiterate on behalf of passengers, including myself, how annoying the annual increase in rail fares is and that we resent it predominantly because we do not feel that we are getting value for money, especially with the local council earning millions of pounds out of exorbitant car parking charges. I am lucky enough to be able to walk to the train station from my home in Stevenage, but many of my constituents are not as fortunate and have to pay large car parking charges on top of the large rail fares. For a 30-mile journey from Stevenage to King’s Cross, an annual travelcard costs well in excess of £4,000.

I would like to remain as positive as possible, however, because I am proud of my local area, so I will set out some of the improvements we have seen over the past five years, to Stevenage station in particular. A gate-line installation massively improved security and revenue protection along the whole line. The overbridge at Stevenage has a new kiosk, the toilets have been refurbished, the ticket office now has induction loops, the station has been repainted and there are food and drink vending machines. The ticket office is compliant with the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, cycle parking has been improved twice—three or four years ago, and last year it was increased by another 55%, with a £36,000 investment—and the waiting rooms have been refurbished. We now have four CCTV cameras installed and one thin film transistor or TFT-enhanced LCD display screen, so that we can all see what time the train is coming and how long it will be delayed for. We have DDA-compliant handrails to stairways. The Cambridge capacity study has reviewed and launched installation of dispatch equipment to allow for 12-car trains, so if we can obtain the rolling stock, thousands more seats will be available for even more of us to have a seat on our commute to London.

Network Rail’s national station improvement programme has led to platform seating being renewed, and station signage has been replaced. A new customer information service screen has been installed in the waiting room on platform 1, so people can sit down and not get wet when looking to see what time their train will come. Meeting point signage systems have also been installed. There has been a host of further welcome improvements to security in conjunction with British Transport Police, and both my local stations—Stevenage and Knebworth— are now fully accredited as safer stations. That is all good news, and positive.

There are many more improvements to look forward to over the next few years, including plans to resurface platforms later this year. Network Rail plans to make minor extensions to the platforms so that we can have 12-car trains. Most important, access-for-all funding is allowing conversion of the goods lift to a fully automated passenger lift. That is costing £578,000, and disabled passengers will be able to use the lift, instead of waiting for a member of staff to unlock the goods lift, which is totally inappropriate. I welcome the additional funding, and that work is due to be completed in March 2014.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

I am listening with interest to the hon. Gentleman’s description of the improvements at Stevenage station. The hon. Gentleman also mentioned Knebworth station in his constituency. Does he share my concern that investment in stations to make them more accessible and modern will be completely wasted if the Government press ahead with plans to close ticket offices? Knebworth is mentioned in the McNulty report as a station that may have its ticket office closed. Many people rely on staff at stations to help them.

[Mr Jim Hood (in the Chair)]

Order. The hon. Lady’s intervention is too long.