THE lack of availability of toilet facilities at Frome Railway Station has been criticised by rail users.
Customers are calling for the opening hours of the station’s toilets to be extended to allow access throughout the day when trains are running, providing a better service to all customers, especially those that are more vulnerable, such as children, the elderly and people living with disabilities.
Currently the toilets are only open when the booking office is manned, which is Monday to Friday 6.30am-12pm, and Saturday 6.30am-12.50pm. The toilets are closed on Sundays.
GWR, who manage the station, has said that the toilets are closed outside of these hours to ‘prevent them from being misused’. But users are unhappy, particularly as the booking office closes at lunchtime and doesn’t open at all on Sundays.
Concern was also recently raised that the station’s toilets were to be closed permanently after a sign appeared in the booking office window informing customers that there would no longer be any toilets at the station due to vandalism.
However, GWR has offered reassurance that this is not the case and that there are ‘no plans to close the facility’.
One rail user told Frome Times, “It is unacceptable that the toilets are only open in the morning. What about children, the elderly, and disabled people who need access outside of these times? And people are urinating around the station – especially on a Friday and Saturday night – it’s disgusting!
“And recently the toilets have been out of order for weeks because of vandalism. I witnessed one disabled woman who was desperate for the loo – she was refused access to the staff toilet and was turned away – she had to go elsewhere and missed her train.
“More should be done to improve the toilets at the station – GWR have a turnover of millions, they should be able to afford it!”
A spokesperson for GWR told Frome Times, “There has been a period of time (circa a few weeks) where customers have been asked to request the key for the toilets from the booking office. This follows a spate of vandalism. A notice was placed on the toilet door to inform customers of this.
“The vandalism has been dealt with (cleaned and toilet refreshed) and reopened (i.e. without needing to request the key). There may have been a very short period of time when the toilet was closed to allow this work to be done.”
A new community group, ‘Friends of Frome Station’, is also supporting the call for better toilet facilities. Town councillor Steve Tanner, chair of the group said, “Friends of Frome Station has been set up to try and help address these issues and we have had a series of well received public meetings around the issues. We are working with GWR and Network rail with a goal to improve facilities at the station.
“The long term goal is to make the station a vibrant and well used space that is comfortable, with improved facilities. That would obviously include public loos. Anyone who would like to be part of Friends of Frome Station should contact us at friendsoffromestation@gmail.com and we will keep you informed of our progress.”
