Whitley Bay GREEN Seaside Station Day 30/8/08

Report by Lindsay Perks                                                                                 

This is a brief record of my day manning the SUSTRANS stand at the first Whitley Bay GREEN Seaside Station Day. Unfortunately, Ron Dodd was unable to join me, as planned, as he had to go into hospital unexpectedly in the middle of Friday night.  I have been to see him and he is now well on the way to recovery. Ron is now out of hospital.

I knew there had to be some very good reason for him not appearing!

It was a very busy day. The hardest part for me was setting up and dismantling the stand as it was quite a distance to where the car was parked. I think I had to make about 8 trips to and from the car. I went in the car at 7:00 am and left it as near as I could to the station and cycled home on my Brompton, had breakfast and returned at 9:00 with ample time to set up before the start at 10:00 am. If I had left it any later to take the car I would have had to trek miles to the nearest available car park.

As I was on my own I just managed to be ready on time.  It was pretty busy all day. I took the two photos of the stand before it had opened officially!  I gave away hundreds of maps but was not able to sell any. I almost sold a new ‘Coast and Castles’ and a ‘Walney to Wear’ but  the folk concerned had insufficient funds! A lot of people asked for information and advice and I have one or two queries to follow up.  A recurring theme during the day was the refusal of Nexus to allow bikes on the Metro. This must have bee  mentioned by more than 50 folk, probably because the event took place on a Metro station.  Nexus were there and I took it up with them – again – very strongly. They still insist it is a health and safety issue and the Railways Inspectorate will not permit it. This is untrue of course. If they wanted to they could adapt their rolling stock quite simply to remove any hazard. It is the same as the ban on mobile scooters. The problem is the weak doors not mobile scooters and they could provide secure areas – even one on each train – to accommodate them. 

Fortunately, Ken Davison turned up about 1:30pm and was a good help. At least I was able to take a break, leave the stand and look around the other stands. There were 25 in all plus a day long programme of entertainment. Ken stayed for a couple of hours and I was very glad of his support.

I thought you might be amused by the photographs of the Japanese Unicyclists who were quite outstanding. The pictures also gives some  idea of what the attendance was like. As each metro landed the attendance was swelled significantly but there were many people who had clearly come specially for the event. Hundreds if not thousands turned up and everybody thought it was a great success for a first event. Hopefully, they will repeat it next year and, if they do, I think we ought to support it. As long as I am not on my own! Of course, I should have been OK today if Ron had been fit. 

I am sure you will agree two is the minimum we should have at any stand on a day long event.  You will know what I mean from your experience at Brent Park last week. 

Phil and family put in a brief appearance. And I saw a number of other cyclists I knew but no one else from Sustrans. Recykey'bike had a stand but Dorothy and Alasdair were looking after the shop at Byker. The Sustrans arrangements for supplying appropriate materials for events leave something to be desired. I had to make do and mend to make things look half decent. It was a case of sticky tape, string and drawing pins to hold things together but the stand survived.  I think I might give them the benefit of my advice based on our experience here and elsewhere!

But generally it was a very good and successful day.