Update is just a convenience

Neither of them has tried to explain how replacing bridge links and staircase canopies has provided 'a much more pleasant waiting environment', nor how actually replacing Timperley station's two direct stairways with multiple flights which include turns has 'improved accessibility'.

The local residents who are said to have been consulted beforehand should tell us whether they did really agree to handicapped and slower passengers, who are reluctant to use the lifts already there, being exposed even longer to rain, snow and ice on the open steps than the rest of us now are.

GMPTE have been unable to give me even one instance of actual assault or even intimidation before the revamp which they claim is making passengers so much safer - obvious nonsense in view of the attack on a youth on January 8, in the open on Stretford station - the first to have its security 'improved'.

The surest safeguard for passengers at any likely troublespot would be the presence of security guards at 'lonely' times, which I have already suggested to GMPTE without response - not even a silly 'we can't afford it'.

How many wages are there in the two and half million pounds this revamp is going to cost?

I believe that GMPTE's unstilted enthusiasm for its update is largely a smokescreen to hide the same maintenance mentality that lost us so many platform canopies years ago.

After the initial expense, steps of stones and bridges no longer there will cost next to nothing to maintain.

That kind of thinking leaves no room for either genuine concern for passenger safety and convenience or respect for a railway heritage stretching back for over a century.

The only true passenger benefit will be ticket machines, which really work, but those are obviously at the bottom of GMPTE's list.

Jack Wilson, Timperley