A BAND of volunteers are hoping to come together this month to spruce up the bus shelter at Alton railway station.

So dilapidated has the structure become that not only does it fail to provide adequate shelter for Stagecoach bus passengers but it has become an eyesore.

Outraged by the redundant nature of the shelter and by its “disgraceful” appearance which, he believes, gives a poor first impression of the town for visitors arriving by train, regular bus passenger Peter Desmond-Thomas has been spearheading a campaign to get it replaced or improved.

He describes the structure as “completely inadequate”. There is graffiti scratched into the paintwork on the metal frame, one of the perspex panels is now missing, there is no weather-proofing and minimal seat perches, which are inadequate for the elderly and infirm.

Furthermore, it provides no real-time bus service information, he said.

Mr Desmond-Thomas was pushing at an open door where town and district councillor Graham Hill is concerned, and Mr Hill is now leading the team who, on June 16, expect to be rolling up their sleeves to bring about a facelift for the shelter.

The sticking point has been over ownership of the structure and who will pay for the work. Alton Town Council owns and maintains all 17 bus shelters in and around the town with the exception of the shelter at the railway station. Painted green, the feeling is that it is probably owned by South West Trains or Network Rail.

According to Mr Hill, while this has not been fully established the team is still awaiting permission from South West Trains to proceed with the makeover and an agreement that it will cover the cost of replacing the three curved perspex panels that make up the roof and sides of the structure, expected to be in the region of £200.

While it is hoped that in time the structure might be replaced as part of the Waitrose £150,000 Section 106 project to improve the approach to the station, having suffered at the hands of vandals in March, with damage to the perspex panels leaving, in Mr Desmond-Thomas’s words, “the structure unsafe”, the state of the shelter is felt to call for more immediate attention.

Mr Hill is hoping this will be a temporary solution and in a year’s time the structure will be replaced as part of the Waitrose project, but this has not yet been agreed.

In the meantime, it is fingers crossed that South West Trains will come up trumps and that the community team, which is expected to include Alton Men’s Shed members, will be able to get to work and provide a bus shelter that is more presentable and up to the job – albeit without real-time information which, according to Mr Hill, while on the Alton Neighbourhood Plan wishlist now appears to be considered “old school” and is likely to be replaced by a mobile phone app.