Refurbishment
T
he benchmark set by the £800 million refurbishment of London’s St Pancras and the ongoing development of London Bridge
station – with its £6 billion price tag – have provided the rail renovation industry with a welcome boost in recent years. The 2011 McKinsey report Keeping
Britain Moving estimated the cost of maintaining, renewing and expanding the UK’s rail infrastructure at around £125 billion over the next two decades. The estimate is based on 2010 costs and works out at around £6 billion a year, a substantial amount of which will go towards upgrading some of the country’s 2,500 stations. The benefits of station refurbishment
can be seen in a report commissioned by Northern Rail prior to and after its renovation of Rochdale and Harrogate stations. Customer satisfaction levels shot up from 48 to 76 per cent at the latter station and the knock-on effect was a three per cent rise in the Toc’s income. According to a Department for
Transport report Better Rail Stations (2009) the current spend of £600 million per year is sufficient to hold most stations at their current condition only, says the report and should be stepped up by 25 per cent for the ten-year period from 2014 to around £800 million a year. Dozens of UK stations have been
earmarked for renovations including extra platforms, escalators and new concourse areas. The demand creates a need for new station furniture which includes benches, shelters, ticket machines and bins. Aside from the standards set out in the £370 million Access for All upgrade programme to provide step-free and lift access at all stations by 2020, there is a major push to improve cycling and car parking facilities at stations. The target set in 2009, by the experts behind the Better Rail Stations report, is for five per cent of joining passengers to arrive at the station on bicycles by next year. If achieved, it would mark a three per cent increase. Parliamentary Under Secretary for
Transport, Norman Baker, has announced that £12 million is earmarked to be spent getting rail commuters out of their cars and onto bikes.
Solar panels generating electricity sit alongside the building’s green roof which contains more than 14 different plant species to contribute to the area’s local ecology and reduce rainwater run-off into the drainage system. This renewable technology is expected to reduce the building’s carbon emissions by 10 per cent.
Network Rail began a £500,000 project in July to repair and redecorate the station’s structural steelwork and glazing. Route managing director Dyan Crowther said: ‘This is a beautiful old building and the investment we are making to sympathetically refurbish it will safeguard its future and allow passengers to continue to enjoy the station in decades to come.’ The station is managed by Northern Rail and will remain open throughout the refurbishment, which is expected to be completed by the end of the year.
The lamp block was delivered last summer by Network Rail on behalf of Cross Country Trains and was constructed in less than a year within a very challenging environment between a rock face and the live operational railway.
H
ellifield station
133 year-old Hellifield station in the Yorkshire Dales is in the process of returning to its former glory thanks to Network Rail. While there has been a station at the site since 1849, the existing canopy, which was constructed in 1880 by the Midland Railway, is a Grade II listed building. Built of iron and glass, the station was last refurbished in the mid-1990’s. With the Pennine weather having taken its toll,
Green light for New Street’s lamp block One of the greenest buildings on the network has been awarded a prestigious seal of approval from an internationally recognised body in construction sustainability standards. ‘The lamp block’ building on Platform 1 at Birmingham New Street station, opened last summer, has been awarded a BREEAM (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method) rating of Excellent in recognition of its wealth of sustainable features including a solar thermal system to generate hot water, sub-metering for all water, heating and cooling to monitor energy consumption and an energy efficient lighting system.
September 2013 Page 51
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