Chris Green and Sir Peter Hall have been appointed “stations’ champions” to advise the UK government on how stations can be improved. The appointments follow the six-day whistle-stop tour of the rail network by transport minister Lord Adonis, who announced at a national rail conference in London that he had asked the two men to review the state of stations.

Adonis found the service level at many of the larger stations downright poor”. He wants advice on the minimum levels of service that should be set. Green, former Virgin Trains chief executive, is a career railway manager, currently a non-executive director of Network Rail. He is uniquely qualified to carry out the review. In the mid-eighties, after serving as general manager of ScotRail, he became director of the newly set-up Network SouthEast commuter railway business under British Rail.

One of his first aims was to unify and standardise the quality of facilities and improve the appearance of the 900-plus stations in a huge area which stretched from Northampton and King’s Lynn in the north to Dover in the east, Weymouth in the south and Exeter in the west. Later he became director of the InterCity rail operation and headed Virgin Trains during the introduction of new train fleets for the West Coast and CrossCountry. In addition to his railway experience he has also been chief executive of English Heritage.

Sir Peter Hall is an English town planner and geographer. He is the Bartlett professor of planning and regeneration at University College, London, and the president of both the Town and Country Planning Association and the Regional Studies Association. He was special advisor on strategic planning to the government between 1991 and 1994 and a member of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister’s urban task force between 1998 and 1999.

The two “champions” will advise the Government on the minimum levels of service that should be set at stations – ensuring they are appropriate to the stations’ passenger flows – so passengers can be confident that stations will meet set standards. They will also provide advice on how other changes such as “quick wins,” better station management, future franchise agreements, Network Rail initiatives and longer term investment can be brought about in a way that delivers better stations.

Other tasks will include looking at how government station initiatives are working, such as the Access for All, in which £370 million has been committed towards improving facilities at stations for disabled passengers, and the National Stations Improvement Plan, which aims to upgrade around 150 stations with £150 million of funding. There is also a Secure Stations Scheme which recognises measures to improve station security and provide reassurance to passengers and staff.

Announcing the appointment of the two men, Lord Adonis said: “My tour gave me a real insight into the state of the network, which is good overall. It was clear, however, that the quality of stations is extremely variable and there was great variability in the quality of bus interchanges, together with the unavailability of local transport information and even basic local street maps.”

[ Sir Peter Hall was the author of “Great Planning Disasters” (Penguin 1981), which should be prescribed reading for every minister of transport.. – editor

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