Report to the People
17th May 2004
Wemyss
Bay Station
As
it looks like we’re making our first tentative steps towards the summer,
it’s tempting to think back to crackly black and white memories of the halcyon
summer days of old. Those endless,
glorious afternoons; the long balmy evenings; an ice cream, a bag of chips and
your bus fair home – all for less than a shilling.
There
will be many who will also remember Wemyss Bay at the Glasgow Fair and the
massed hordes pouring off the trains and sweeping along that magnificent wooden
concourse, as they made their way through the station, down to the ferry and
thence doon the watter.
Sadly,
though, to say that the station’s Edwardian grandeur has since faded is
putting it mildly.
The
toilets, for example, are a disgrace; the paint is cracked and peeling; and
plants are growing out the walls – despite the money we invested in
refurbishments.
I
have, therefore, recently met with representatives of Strathclyde Passenger
Transport and Caledonian MacBrayne, who are also concerned at this disrepair, to
discuss the way forward.
“But
what,” some might ask, “is the point? Today’s working families from
Glasgow go their holidays to Rhodes and the Balearics, not Rothesay and Bute.
Why do we need a showpiece station like Wemyss Bay?”
This
attitude, I would argue, fails to see the bigger picture.
Work patterns have changed – people in Glasgow no longer need to wait
until the Fair before they can get a weekend away.
They
can leave Glasgow and travel fairly swiftly by public transport to, for example,
stay in the award winning caravan park at Wemyss Bay, or venture further afield
and enjoy one of the famous themed weekends in Rothesay.
In
short, they can see first class scenery, get a taste of island life and sample
some local hospitality – without a 250-odd mile car journey up North.
The
Scottish weekend tourist market is growing and, given all our assets, we should
be getting a bigger slice of it. But,
when the first thing visitors see when they get off the train is a decaying,
ramshackle station, devoid of any real facilities, this is simply not going to
happen.
When, as in this case, a matter could be the responsibility of a number of bodies, it is too likely that none will take it. I don’t believe, however, that this is inevitable here. With a bit of team work, there’s no reason why the common interest cannot prevail.
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