Shoreham station subway campaign gets a new lease of life

Letter from: Adrian Towler, Shoreham Society, Connaught Avenue, Shoreham
Nico Kearns at Shoreham Railway Station's level crossing SUS-200623-160920001Nico Kearns at Shoreham Railway Station's level crossing SUS-200623-160920001
Nico Kearns at Shoreham Railway Station's level crossing SUS-200623-160920001

I was pleased to see that Nico Kearns and the Liberal Democrats have kick-started the subway access campaign again.

The last contact Shoreham Society had with Network Rail was in 2017 when they said it would cost ‘in excess of £100,000 to do a feasibility study’ for two access points – not to do anything, just to consider it.

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Nevertheless they must have spent well in excess of £100,000 recently to replace a quite good metal footbridge at Fishersgate Halt with… another quite good metal footbridge. Why?

The Sussex Community Rail Partnership has found, like us, that Network Rail (NR) can be difficult to work with so I hope Nico has more success than us, and we would love to see the reply he gets, if any. Sadly I don’t think the coronavirus angle will help much. People passing close to each other in the confines of the subway could be more of a danger than staying on the surface – and that might be NR’s response.

The previous three obstacles/ excuses were lack of space, cost and potential discrimination against vulnerable users, therefore it ‘requires us to retain the status quo’. Well, Shoreham Society solved issues one and three and is hoping Adur Council might tempt NR with some Section 106 developers’ levy, not to pay their outrageous fees but maybe make a contribution. Crowdfunding might also work.

And if the Herald gets a reply maybe you could print it but not left unchallenged; please add a ‘credibility check’ or a comment from local experts. Built by the railway companies and placed by the crossing for public use, it’s a scandal really that NR won’t let us use it.