The Friends of Reddish South Station
Newsletter: July 2011
Hello Friends
Only 2 weeks since our last meeting and such a lot has happened!
The Community Fun Day at Reddish Vale Park (26th June 2011) was a great success. We had a lot of interest from all attending especially about the Folk Train, ran out of information leaflets, got more information for our survey and added to our membership list. If this is your first FORSS newsletter as a new member, welcome, and thank you for joining us.
Friends of Denton Station had a ‘Raising Awareness Day’ at Sainsburys, Denton,(3rd July 2011) which was also heralded a great success. Alan Jones & Co added 54 members, raised nearly £300 and was invited to speak at a local Rotary group meeting. Well done Denton Friends.
There was a South East Manchester Community Rail Partnership meeting held on 28th June 2011 – this group includes representatives from Northern Rail, local Councils and Friends Groups. As a result of this meeting Dot Ashworth, Treasurer FORSS, has been able to secure £350 towards the start of Phase 2 of our planting and renovation of the station platform programme which began last year.
Phase 1 has now been completed (the first clearing and planting schedule was finished in April 2011).
Pictured just after the first delivery of topsoil in October 2010 L to R:
Friends Noel, Alan, Tom, Dot and Dave.
The photo (left) was taken after phase one was completed in April 2011. We are pleased to say that, mainly due to the tireless watering done by Noel & Dave during that very dry April all but 2 small plants have ‘taken’ and will mature to provide good attractive ground cover over the next 12 months. Needless to say that now the ground is becoming better quality so are the weeds!
We still have a way to go but have made a good start in making the station more attractive for our potential rail service users!!
As we have now secured more funding, the Committee have decided that rather than attend events on Heritage Weekend (10th -11th September 2011) as we usually do, that we would rather be part of the weekend by spending the morning of the 10th having the next delivery of topsoil and making a start on Phase 2 of the re-landscaping of the station.
Any help would be appreciated- but if you wish to help move the topsoil please make sure you are wearing very stout shoes (such as walking shoes) – otherwise, there will be lots of weeding to be done!! However, please come and see us even if it only to have a look around. Everyone is welcome.
The art project for the station platform wall has begun as a joint work between Arc and Stockport Youth Offending Team headed by Jacqui Wood and Brian Pendlebury. David Campbell is the artist leading the project, which will be carried out by young offenders as part of their rehabilitation. The theme of the work is ‘Second Chances’ as a reference to the young participants, the station itself as well as hopes for a reinstated service.
Martin Wystyrk (vice chair) attended the Northern Area West Stakeholder Conference on July 6th 2011 – he will report back at our next meeting.
Kim Burrows(secretary) and Alan Burrows will be attending ACORP(Station Adoption) seminar on July 21st
We are delighted to have been invited to the Rail Heritage Weekend at Crewe Heritage Centre on 20th-21st August 2011 to have a ‘stall’ and raise awareness of our campaign. If you want further details please contact Kim Burrows (secretary) or Dot Ashworth(Treasurer).
RAIL SERVICE REINSTATEMENT CAMPAIGN:
The new franchises are still scheduled to be allocated for the end of 2013. To this end, as you all know, we have been campaigning for a service from Stockport to Manchester Victoria Station. Noel Henry (Technical Sub-Committee Chair) has put together an updated report supporting the reintroduction of a service plus an excellent short presentation on DVD. The report has already gone to the Councillors on the SEMcrp group and will also go to the Dept for Transport, Andrew Gwynne MP (who is also a Shadow Transport Minister) plus all other relevant parties involved in the decision making process. On behalf of the Committee I would like to thank Noel for all the hard work involved in putting together such an excellent piece of work.
The proposals have already been ratified by Stockport and Tameside Councils – if you would like to read the report, you can follow it up at: http://www.tfgm.com/ltp3/documents/LAIP-Stockport-v3.pdf.
pages 5, 6, 40 and 41 mention us particularly.
Tameside Council have done the same see: http://www.tfgm.com/ltp3/documents/LAIP-Tameside.pdf(I only know about p.13)
We’re on the way- fingers crossed-watch this space!!!
Incidentally – have you noticed the new poster cases on the station platform? We think that they have been put in by Transport for Greater Manchester as part of a small investment scheme for smaller stations in the Greater Manchester area - we’re glad we’re starting to get noticed!
SUMMER FOLK TRAIN:
As you may be aware, Retro Railtours were hoping to run another special excursion with a scheduled stop at Reddish South, this time to Glasgow via Carlisle in August, and we had thought that it would have made a very special folk train along the lines of the East Cheshire trip in May. We now know that Retro, although they hope still to run this excursion, say it will be in September (but no definite date as yet), which gave us a bit of a dilemma. However, due to the interest at the Community Day we are going ahead with the Folk Train on 26th August (see attached) – hope you can make it.
DATES FOR YOUR DIARY:
Saturday & Sunday 20th -21st August 2011– Crewe Heritage Centre weekend
FRIDAY 26TH AUGUST 2011 SUMMER FOLK TRAIN – 9.26AM FROM REDDISH SOUTH STATION
Saturday 4th September 2011 – Fun/Community Day at South Reddish Park (Greg Street) 12noon-4pm
SATURDAY 10TH SEPTEMBER 2011– HERITAGE WEEKEND –MORNING (10AM-12NOON) ON REDDISH SOUTH STATION RE-LANDSCAPING PROJECT
Sunday 11th September 2011 – Fun/Community Day at Manchester Road Park, Heaton Chapel
Saturday ?? September – possible Retro Railtours excursion to Glasgow via Carlisle stopping at Reddish South Station – confirmation/details as soon as possible
Provisional date for next FORSS meeting –
Thursday 29th September 7.30pm at Reddish Community Centre, Gorton Road, Reddish.