Northern stations win big at Cheshire Best Kept Stations Awards

Alderley Edge won the top award, being named 'Cheshire Best Kept Station’ in 2023.

It follows praise for the station by the Royal Horticultural Society in October 2023 when its floral offering was recognised as ‘Outstanding’ by the UK’s leading garden charity.

The station has also recently seen investment in CCTV provision as part of a roll-out of 612 new cameras across the Northern network.

The awards, which are celebrating their 21^st anniversary this year, were presented by Professor Paul Salveson MBE in Northwich last week (Tues 12 March).

Also picking up an award was Brinnington station, which was named ‘Best Staffed Station’. The station was in the national media spotlight in 2023 following the success of a ‘Swap Shop’ created at the station for the local community by Northern colleagues Stewart Hall and Darin Astbury. 

Other Northern-managed stations that picked up awards were: Greenbank (Best Unstaffed Station), Rose Hill (In Bloom Award), Disley (Sustainability Award), Goostrey (Art Project Award) and Romiley (King’s Coronation Award).

Delamere won the Cheshire West and Chester Award, Glazebrook won the Halton & Warrington Award and Heaton Chapel won the special TfGM Award.

Stations that were Highly Commended in their categories included Marple (Community Rail Network Award for Community Engagement), Handforth (Best Staffed Station), Hale (King’s Coronation Award) and Sandbach (Cheshire East Award).

For more information about the awards, visit: www.bestkeptstations.org.uk/2023-winners.

Craig Harrop, regional director for Northern, said: “I’d like to congratulate all my colleagues and the volunteer groups at stations across Cheshire that were recognised at the awards last week.

“Their commitment to excellence in terms of the presentation, operation and overall customer experience of their stations is remarkable and the awards are a great opportunity to highlight their hard work.”

Speaking at the awards ceremony last week, Mark Barker, chair of Cheshire Best Kept Stations, said: “What volunteers do is amazing; the passion, commitment, ingenuity, resourcefulness and sheer hard work has improved your stations for passengers, the community, the railway and for yourselves."

In a rallying call to volunteer groups across the county, he added: "Please keep on doing what you are doing!”

Northern is the second largest train operator in the UK, with 2,500 services a day to more than 500 stations across the North of England.