Victory For Campaign To Clean Rail Bridge

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Kingston Road bridge to be re-painted

An eyesore railbridge in Wimbledon Chase is to be re-painted sometime in the next financial year.

The bridge across the main Kingston Road (right) had some graffiti removed in 2011 after campaigners lobbied Network Rail.

It took them two years, including the presentation of a 700-name petition by Wimbledon MP Stephen Hammond followed by lobbying from Lib Dem Assembly member Caroline Pigeon, before graffiti was removed from the four corners of the bridge.

Now local Lib Dem campaigner Anthony Fairclough has been told by Network Rail that the bridge will be re-painted sometime in 2013/14 - although the date is yet to be confirmed.

He said: "It took two years for us to convince them to paint out the worst of the grafitti, which was far too long. That's obviously set the ball rolling on getting them to sort out the whole bridge.

"There should be a straightforward way for members of the public to report these kind of problems and then action from those who're responsible. You shouldn't need to be a transport expert, or oddly persistent, to get rubbish and graffiti removed near where you live, just because it happens to be on railway land or structures."

February 17, 2013