Train operator Greater Anglia has been allowed to press ahead with plans to complete £1m of improvements at Brandon railway station.
Breckland Council has confirmed that the operator’s plans to redevelop the station are lawful under development regulations.
A Certificate of Lawful Use or Development has been granted to Greater Anglia. This means that it can proceed with its plans to increase Brandon’s parking capacity by demolishing redundant station buildings.
Greater Anglia plans to invest £1m in improving passenger facilities.
Brandon will benefit from new waiting shelters, more lighting and CCTV cameras as well as better drainage, while the number of car parking spaces will increase from 6 to 100.
It is anticipated that the work will start towards the end of 2020.
Greater Anglia’s Director for Asset Management, Simone Bailey, said: “We are pleased to now have the support of the council and the Railway Heritage Trust so that we can get on with making Brandon rail station fit for purpose in the 21st century and improve its facilities for our passengers. While we are sympathetic to the views of some who would like to see the old station buildings retained, no-one has ever come forward with a credible business plan that demonstrates that they either have the investment required or an ongoing sustainable use for the buildings. As a result, they are falling further and further into disrepair and becoming unsafe.”
Simone continued: “Therefore, we have concluded that the best course of action is to demolish the buildings as this will provide more space, enabling us to improve the station in other important ways – i.e. making sure there are enough car parking spaces and accessible parking spaces available, as this will enable everyone to access the station and rail travel more easily. In turn, a shift locally from car to train benefits, everyone, through reductions in road traffic congestion and pollution as it is a much more environmentally friendly way to travel.”
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Responses
WEASEL WORDS are always there to hide the truth. Isn’t it great to learn that
DESTROYING is really just another word for UPGRADING!
Who needs Stonehenge? Dangerous, inaccessible; let’s crush the stones into roadgrit and turn them into a nice new carpark: SAFER for everybody, lots of ice cream, factory outlet shops etc.
Shouldn’t we resist the attempt to trick us into believing that the proposed
DEMOLITION OF BRANDON STATION is something that’s inherently and self-evidently desirable? That it must be so because we are told how
LAWFUL it is? Council says so; see how well they look after us. Nice council, caring council.
The headline and the article are a masterpiece of disingenuousness, deception and….
DISSEMBLING – twisting truth by ‘spinning’ corporate misbehaviour as ‘good news’. This is
INTENDED TO MISLEAD; which leads one to question whether the project itself is SIMILARLY TAINTED. There are always motives to deception. Anyone like to guess?
Have we forgotten how Kensington Council secretly moved bulldozers in AT NIGHT and demolished their own spectacularly beautiful Town Hall when they heard that they were about to be legally prohibited from doing so? Every piece of heritage lost to tacky redevelopment is a betrayal of trust and an error by which future generations will judge us.
Brandon was famous as the National centre of the Flint Industry. Norfolk Historic Buildings Trustee James Brandon has described the 175-year-old flint-built Brandon Station as the best example of flint work ANYWHERE! How much more corporate vandalism are we prepared to tolerate?
So we will have to wait for a train in the equivalent of a bus shelter instead of a nice cosy waiting room.
But who is ready to fund ongoing maintenance? The alternative is creeping deterioration untell vandals move in and all that will be left is a pile of rubble. Will locals fund re-habilitation?
Architectural vandalism. To think these station buildings were featured in an episode of the infamous BBC’s Dad’s Army. I would like to know what stance the Railway Heritage Trust has about this decision…..
Architectural vandalism, and to think this station building was featured in an episode of the infamous BBC’s Dad’s Army. I would like to know, what stance the Railway Heritage Trust has about this decision…..
Utterly vacuous and pathetic approach here. This is heritage every bit as important as Roman architecture. Sign of the times – demolish heritage to replace it with tarmac and disabled spaces. Throw in some guff about environment and the excuses are all there to abolish what’s left of the country that has meaning or a soul to it. Rip out anything that was built with proper architectural detail and replace it with a plastic world that will look faded, scratched and potholed within a year. Why do we have these people in power to destroy Britain as they did so much already in the 1960’s and 70’s. Today these same people remove wonderful pavements and stick tarmac over them too, making our cities look like third world shanty towns.
I despair.
I think Brandon railway station really needs it. I have been to Brandon twice and it’s such a nice station and the town is also very nice. Hope it all goes well.