Community Information Facility Withdrawn from Whitby Station After Relentless Vandalism

The community-run information point at the Grade II listed Whitby railway station has been targeted by vandals leading the Esk Valley Community Rail Partnership to announce the immediate removal of the facility.

In the most recent incident over the weekend, volunteers discovered a scene of significant destruction, with the information cart's wheel broken and essential passenger documents scattered across the platforms.

Lisa Williams, the General Manager of the Esk Valley Community Rail Partnership, expressed profound frustration over the recurring anti-social behaviour that has plagued the unmanned station. The group began producing their own line guides and timetables when train operating companies ceased providing them during the pandemic. Ms Williams detailed the extent of the latest damage:

"Since COVID happened, none of the train operating companies produce timetables, we do and we produce line guides and information about the line which we display on the cart which is an information point and sadly it's been seriously vandalized this time.

It happens quite regularly where they pull out the timetables or stuff down into the timetable hold or break the timetable holders themselves.

Now this weekend they've gone all out and they've broken it.  They've broken the wheel. They've slung all of the leaflets, the timetables, everything all over the platforms. It's a horrendous mess. Absolutely dreadful. We just can't We can't keep going on like this. It's ridiculous."

The partnership has noted that this is not an isolated occurrence. Previously, poster cases on a large display board opposite the cart were ripped off and thrown onto the tracks. According to Ms Williams, the lack of security measures at night remains a primary concern for the volunteers who donate their time to maintain the station’s appearance and keep passengers informed.

Reflecting on the challenges of maintaining a community presence at the site, Ms Williams stated:

"We work so hard to do nice things for the community and produce these wonderful timetables that do give you all the information about the line.

We do have the big display board opposite which we did have two poster cases on but again they were ripped off and vandalized and thrown onto the track.

Um so until we can get it to a situation that we can make it a more secure station I think we've just got to do the best we can."

The Esk Valley group has been advocating for Northern to allow the station to be locked overnight, as was common practice many years ago. Ms Williams suggested that the current open nature of the station provides a sheltered location for youngsters to congregate, leading to anti-social behaviour. However, locking the station would require reliable local volunteers in Whitby to open the gates early each morning.

"The station isn't locked in the evening. Many years ago, it used to be locked up at night. It's not any more. We're working really hard trying to persuade Northern to allow us to lock the station again at night, but again, we need to find reliable people in Whitby that would be happy to open up the railway station each morning about half 64 to 7 in the morning.

We think if we could lock it, it would cut down the antisocial behaviour. I'm certain it's not school children. I think it's youngsters getting together in the evening. It's dry there. It's sheltered. It's somewhere for them to just hang out. So sadly, I think we're we're going to have to admit defeat for the time being and we're going to relocate it."

Further complications arise from the station’s CCTV system. While cameras are present, the partnership claims they receive little support from Northern, Whitby Town Council, or the British Transport Police in monitoring the footage. Ms Williams noted that without a specific thirty-minute time slot for an incident, authorities are often unwilling to review the recordings. She contrasted this with modern domestic security systems that provide instant alerts.

"There is CCTV, but it is an unmanned station. We would have to give the people that run the CCTV a slot of when these things happened and we've no idea. It could have been Saturday. It could have been Sunday. It's just a guess. And unless we can tie it down to I think it's something like half an hour. They just won't go through the whole CCTV.

So, another thing we're working on cuz in this day and age, we've got CCTV at home and it pings as soon as somebody comes through the gate. Now, you can't tell me that railway stations couldn't use a similar type of thing if there's some sort of antisocial behaviour going on that they could react to it, but they don't seem to be doing that at the moment.

We've just heard from the stations manager for TransPenine Express. He's agreed to allow us to relocate the cart to Middlesbrough, which is a really good outcome of a bad situation because at Middlesbrough there's very little information about the Esk Valley line. So, the fact that we can now have that cart as a presence hopefully on the course there would be really huge benefit to us. So it's not all bad news."

While the removal from Whitby is a setback, the relocation to Middlesbrough offers a new opportunity to provide information to travellers on the Esk Valley line. Nevertheless, the partnership remains frustrated that their hard work has been "trashed" and funds wasted, questioning why more isn't being done to protect the local station.