The former Park Hotel - latterly the offices of Lancashire County Council, is to be vacated next year. When the Council have moved out, the concrete office block, built in the 1960s, will be demolished and the original Park Hotel building put up for sale. Park Hotel is an instantly recognisable feature on countless photographs of the station, often featuring as an impressive backdrop photos of locomotives old and new. To those who were spotters of photographers at Preston up to the remodelling in the 1970s, the bridge from the south end of the station to Park Hotel will be fondly remembered as "The Glass Bridge". That bridge is already a distant memory, but the other bridge leading to the former railway-owned hotel will also disappear in the coming months.

The main access to the former hotel building has always been over Vicars bridge, which once straddled the lines of the East Lancs extension. Today, it remains at the far end of what is now Fishergate car park, though it's now almost 40 years since a train past under it. Amazingly, the original 1848 bridge still remains, though cars and pedestrians are now carried by a Bailey bridge erected by the Royal Engineers in the 1950s. The original structure, in which the Bailey bridge sits, has now decayed to the point where it must be demolished. Rusting and buckling have reached the point where it must be removed for safety reasons. For the time being, the "temporary" 1950s bridge, which has already lasted far longer than was ever intended, will continue in use until a new modern structure can be built.

Vicars Bridge, the last reminder of the East Lancs station at Preston will no doubt be missed, but few will be sad to see the back of the concrete "monstrosity" of a building which always looked so out-of-place next to the attractive Park Hotel.

Photos courtesy of Robert Gregson

As one of the co-authors of the report 'Better Rail Stations', I feel I must comment on your editorial.

First, we identifies ten 'priority stations for investment'. We don't see them as 'worst', they're all well-managed but they're suffering from cumulative lack of investment - which our proposals seek to address.

Second, Preston. Our report makes it clear that we agree with you. Preston's fine listed structures should be respected.

The overwhelming problem is poor circulation, with a narrow footbridge encumbered by stairs and a couple of sepulchral subways a long way from the entrance. [1] Our answer is a new footbridge spanning the entire station to the car park, with escalator access from the platforms, eventually connecting to a [2] modern bus station with express busses running out along long-abandoned rail rights-of-way to the M6.

The other issue is that two of the platforms - 1/2 and 5/6 are far too narrow for the huge numbers of passengers using them. [3] We recommend widening 5/6, used by Southbound 'Pendolinos', by shifting the track to occupy the long-abandoned Platform 7. [4] Widening of 1/2, used by Northern and Transpennine services would come later in a comprehensive re-building of the station's west side, [5] restoring to active use the long-abandoned platform complex (the former REs platform / old paltform 1/2). Here, a bay could serve a tram train service from Blackpool South, presently under study in an EU-funded Interreg project, as recommended in our report. Together with rapid transit, this could make Preston a model for the Sub-Regional Super Hub stations we describe. But this is an ambition for later. Meanwhile we need to make Preston fit for purpose.

Professor Ser Peter Hall
Bartlett Professor of Planning and Regeneration, University College London

This certainly throws up some interesting points... 

[1] The new footbridge is already planned by Network Rail back in October 2008 (see News Archive). The implication back then, was that it would have been completed by now.
[2] Are we talking about north over the Deepdale / Longridge Branch, or south over the East Lancs line? Possibly both? This sounds worryingly like the infamous (mis)guided bus scheme in Cambridge. It also seems at odds with the various proposals for a trams over these two disused routes (See News 20th December)
[3] Platform 7 to be sacrificed to enable the widening of the 5/6 island. Platform 7 can hardly be described as long-abandoned, being much used for rail tours and the line is the Up Goods Loop! 
[4] To be honest, I would have thought that this would have been a bigger priority. The extra line between P1 and the REs platform would make widening the Platform 1/2 island relatively easy. 
[5] It seems to me that the easiest option, would be to reinstate the line round the back of the PCD, currently severed in the middle, and reinstate both platform faces as through lines for general use. That would be a necessity because the widening of two island platforms would be at the expense of both the Up and Down Goods Loops...

Clearly, much of this is very much inspirational and is subject to the usual politics which tends to delay (at best) schemes of this type. It might be that the "comprehensive rebuilding of the station's west side" would mean a fresh start with the buildings and platforms on the site of the PCD. Perhaps a way could be incorporated, of letting the RSR run up into the station...!

I'd like to hear your thoughts on what is likely to be the biggest change to Preston Station for 40 years. What do you make of these plans? What are the chances of any of it actually happening?

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