Cookies

We use essential cookies to make our site work. We'd also like to set analytics cookies that help us make improvements by measuring how you use the site. These will be set only if you accept.

For more detailed information about the cookies we use, see our cookies page.

Essential Cookies

Essential cookies enable core functionality such as security, network management, and accessibility. For example, the selections you make here about which cookies to accept are stored in a cookie.

You may disable these by changing your browser settings, but this may affect how the website functions.

Analytics Cookies

We'd like to set Google Analytics cookies to help us improve our website by collecting and reporting information on how you use it. The cookies collect information in a way that does not directly identify you.

Third Party Cookies

Third party cookies are ones planted by other websites while using this site. This may occur (for example) where a Twitter or Facebook feed is embedded with a page. Selecting to turn these off will hide such content.

Campaign Page

Friends of Alton Station Campaign Page

If you would like to help us in our campaign to save Alton station's historic footbridge, here are the things you can do to help:

TAKING ACTION

Donate via our Just Giving crowdfunding-page:
www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/alton-station-footbridge-campaign

'Like' our Facebook Page

Volunteer your help to Friends of Alton Station

NEWS

The campaign has taken a new turn now that the footbridge has been removed (on Saturday 7th March 2020). Many thanks to those of you who wrote to our MP, Damien Hinds, and also Andrew Haines, Chief Executive Network Rail. Everyone's campaigning has made a real difference to the negotiations and we are now on course for making a success of our project to save the footbridge.

Now that we are starting the phase to restore the bridge, we need to step-up our campaign for donations to cover the costs of materials, tools etc and ultimately the costs of putting in its new location at the station. Many people have already made donations to us through our Just Giving page, so thanks to all of you. If you have yet to help our cause, please consider making a donation (the link is above).

THE FACTS

In the autumn of 2018, Friends of Alton Station were invited by Network Rail to provide our own version of how we think the bridge could be removed. This we did, both using our volunteers and by involving a professional engineering company (Andun) to provide the detailed data. We then did our best to work with Network Rail to finally get the bridge removed.

Some members of the public have questioned why the bridge needed to be removed at all. We soon established that making repairs over a working railway is very very expensive, requiring trains to cease whilst work is undertaken and the contractors have to be Network Rail approved. It is therefore desirable to remove the bridge, so the argument has been to do so in a way that safeguards the structure for future restoration.

We were able to receive funding from the Railway Heritage Trust to cover the removal costs, but we now need more to allow us to restore and replace the bridge. Our online Just Giving crowdfunding campaign has been a great success and if you can, we encourage you to donate through this website. Your donations, along with grants from our District Council and the Railway Heritage Trust, have allowed us to commission two engineering companies to produce reports for us and to cover the 'extra over' costs of the bridge removal and transport to its storage site. 

We were extremely patient over the five years of negotiations with Network Rail and it was been hard work getting support for our project. The campaigning led Network Rail to change their tune and hand over the central section of the bridge for us to restore. The bridge was dismantled at the end of January 2022 and put into safe storage. The challenge now is to seek funding to restore the parts we have and to recreate the missing side stair sections, as well as preparing the new site for the bridge.