Shoebury Station re-opens after £700K revamp (From Echo)

Shoebury Station re-opens after £700K revamp

6:34pm Thursday 10th January 2013 in Local News By David Trayner

SHOEBURY Train Station has reopened after a £700,000 revamp to its entrance and toilets.

The 130-year-old station has been given a new easy-access entrance with sliding doors and canopy, new customer toilets have opened on the platforms and new non-slip flooring in the booking office.

Station Manager Julie Penn said: “The new-look station entrance and booking hall is a vast improvement on what existed before.

“It’s now much brighter and more airy inside, and the new wide doors remove a blind corner so it is much easier for customers to flow in and out during peak times.”

The new modern entrance with canopy roof, which replaced an old “porch-style” entrance, taking out a blind corner, was finished between Christmas and New Year, but most passengers only started using it this week due to engineering work at Benfleet.

Passengers have had to use a temporary toilet block next to the station since the first phase of improvement work stated in autumn 2011.

That phase, completed in last spring, involved the treating of the dry rot that had set in to the historic station’s wooden frame.

The second phase, which saw the old porch entrance demolished and new entrance and toilets built, began in October.

In the booking office the floor has been re-tiled to make it less slippery when wet, and the booking office has been redecorated.

The booking office remained open throughout phase two of the work, but passengers had to use a gate alongside the building to access it from the platforms.

The refurbished was carried out under the National Station Improvement Plan.

The Echo reported last moth that a refurbishment of Chalkwell Train Station, completed in June, won the station a National Railway Heritage Award.