Town station set to be refurbished, not replaced

A Staffordshire railway station is set to be refurbished rather than rebuilt due to a lack of funds, according to council bosses.

Plans for a £3.69m overhaul of Kidsgrove's station are set to be scaled back because there is no money to pay for anticipated ground remediation on the site in relation to historical mining works.

Bosses say it could cost a further £2m and that additional funding would not be possible to cover it.

The council said government had told them spending £680,000 on ground investigation work would not be a good use of public funds.

Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council leader Simon Tagg, who is also vice-chair of Kidsgrove Town Deal Board, said plans to refurbish the existing station building were now being drawn up.

"We thought we were going to have a bigger rebuild of Kidsgrove Station," he said.

"The board was going to take the plunge and do the survey, and find out what the groundwork issues were, but we've been told that now there is no money to do any of the remedial work, so it wouldn't be a good use of Town Deal money to spend it on a survey."

He said he disagreed with that view, and that work would now begin on drawing up plans to refurbish the station instead.

The original plans included "an improved modern station building", as well as a transport interchange, a 200-space car park and better access to the canal.

A report from East Midlands Railway set out the possible costs of 12 different scenarios, covering survey, remediation and construction work, with all but one exceeding the level of Town Deal funding available.

The affordable option would have delivered a new station building but left the old one derelict, which the council said "isn't in line with the aspirations of the town deal board".

This news was gathered by the Local Democracy Reporting Service, which covers councils and other public service organisations.

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