A vandalised Whitehaven bus shelter could be taken down following a discussion by the town’s council, which was prompted by a letter from the local MP.
At a meeting of Whitehaven Town Council on July 30, councillors discussed the future of the Woodhouse Road bus shelter.
The clerk told councillors that in 2019, following a consultation and the approval of the then Copeland Borough Council and Cumbria County Council, Whitehaven Town Council were given permission to install a bus shelter on Woodhouse Road.
Following this, there were four incidents of vandalism, with the clerk saying that if her ‘memory served her right’ somebody had been ‘shooting at the panels with an air gun, or rifle’, with the incidents ‘smashing’ some of the panels.
She said the council couldn’t make any insurance claims due to the excess of each claim being higher than the cost, and in November 2022, the council decided ‘after considering the matter that the bus shelter should be taken down and removed.’
The clerk added: "For some unknown reason, I don’t know what it was, it wasn’t done.
"The ward councillor has confirmed that the roof is still on the bus shelter, but the side panels are smashed, but that he had received no complaints about it."
Informing councillors of the current position, the clerk said that the town council had received an email from local MP Josh MacAlister on July 15 saying he was writing on behalf of a constituent who had raised concerns about the fact that the shelter had become ‘overgrown with vegetation which now encroached on the shelter itself’ and that ‘sections of the bus shelter were damaged with panels missing’, and that ‘the shelter is regularly used by elderly residents and children who are unable to make full use of it because of its condition.’
A post with photographs was also said to have been put on Facebook about the matter, which also stated that last year Mr MacAlister had helped to secure ‘substantial funding’ from government for Cumberland Council to invest in local bus services and infrastructure.
In his post, the MP said: "This is not what bus shelters should look like."
The clerk said that she had sent a response to the MP and had also asked the council’s contractor to have a look at the situation and cut round the perimeter of the bus shelter, which they had done on July 16.
She added: "This was carried out as a gesture of goodwill as although the council owns the bus shelter it doesn’t own the land that the bus shelter stands on, nor the land around the perimeter of the bus shelter."
The clerk said that the recommendation was for council to consider the information presented and decide on the way forward.
'The vegetation all around the estate is an absolute mess'
Ward councillor Alan Pearson said: "As councillor for this ward, I can think of many, many things that Greenbank needs, but I don’t see this warranting the issue that he [Mr MacAlister] is making of it.
"Nobody has ever come to me and complained about the bus shelter.
"The vegetation all around the estate is an absolute mess, which I have told you all time and time and again, it’s running wild.
"If you went to 90 per cent of the people on Greenbank and said about the bus shelter, the first thing they’ll say is there are far more things on Greenbank that they are interested in rather than the bus shelter."
Cllr Pearson also said that the buses are running from a different direction now with a route which goes through ‘Greenbank, St Bees, into Egremont and back’ adding: "If he is talking about bus shelters, where the Greenbank bus shelter used to be there isn’t one now, so people are standing without any shelter at all.
"Yet he is on about a bus shelter which I haven’t had a complaint about, and if you put glass panels back in, they will most probably get broken."
Cllr Johnnie Carr said: "I think what we need to do personally is, if it is there, by the looks of it it’s not getting used, find out if there is still a bus stop and if not, it needs removed.
"But I personally think that if Josh is going out of his way to get money into the Cumberland funding it should be basically honoured and basically given, because why should we keep up with repairs if it’s not our land?"
Cllr Edwin Dinsdale said that although he would support Cllr Pearson’s propositions on the way forward due to the shelter being located in his ward, he said: "For me the cleanest thing to do and the way forward for me would be just to take the whole thing down and notify Cumberland and just pass it on to them."
Following further discussion on the matter, a proposition was made for the bus shelter to be taken down and the site made safe, unless Cumberland Council wishes to adopt and maintain it, including grass cutting.
The clerk said she would notify Cumberland Council of the proposition and ask them to notify the council if they would wish to adopt the bus shelter within a month, unless it would be taken down.
Councillors voted unanimously for the proposition.
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