Media centre

Tuesday 12 Feb 2019

£1.5m to be spent revamping stations between Glossop & Manchester

Region & Route:

North West & Central

All stations on the Glossop-to-Manchester railway line are getting a makeover as part of the Great North Rail Project.

More than £1.5m of Department for Transport money will be spent on Glossop, Dinting, Broadbottom, Hattersley, Godley, Newton for Hyde, Flowery Fields, Guide Bridge and Ashburys.

The upgrades include:

• improved signage and walkways
• better lighting and painting

Additional money, from a £15m customer benefits package announced by the Rail Minister last year, will fund better seating, waiting areas and new customer information screens at Glossop station. A disused building in Guide Bridge station will also be refurbished for the NHS or community use.

Rail Minister Andrew Jones said: “I am pleased to see stations on the Glossop-to-Manchester railway line upgraded as part of Network Rail’s £15m enhancements package, delivering comfortable, accessible and modern stations for passengers.

“This comes alongside our record £48bn of investment to modernising our railways, and we are working with Transport for the North and Richard George to drive forward improved performance across the north – focused on delivering more reliable, frequent and punctual services.”

A spokesperson from Transport for the North said: “It’s really pleasing to see the work that is going into rail investment through this project now beginning to trickle directly through to passengers. This is welcome news.”

Rory Kingdon, senior sponsor at Network Rail, said: “The Great North Rail Project continues to transform travel for customers through track and train upgrades.

“We hope passengers will enjoy these new, improved facilities on the Glossop line when they’re completed this spring.”

A spokesperson from Northern said: “This exciting project is in addition to the modernisation that Northern is undertaking that includes new and updated trains, more services and better stations”

The improvement work will be delivered by both Network Rail and Northern. Work will take place between February and spring 2019. There will be no disruption to train services during this time.

NOTES TO EDITORS

• The National Stations Improvement Programme funding administered by the Department for Transport is used to improve medium-sized stations in areas, such as passenger information and facilities.
• In December 2018, the Rail Minister, Andrew Jones MP, announced a £15 million benefit package for passengers across the North. This was following the significant disruption passengers experienced after the introduction of the May 2018 timetable.