[New OxPad] Erroneous platform at Culham ?

[stuart666]

There is one of these old shelters used as a house, damned if I can recall if this is the one or no.

There is a similar situation at Dent Station on the S and C. BR rather foolishly sold the station off, so when it reopened they were forced to fench off the main station building and build a new shelter. Looked quite neat how they did it, it has to be said.

[yerkes]

I guess that because the old stone shelter is apparently a grade listed building, they found it easier to 'retire' the existing platform and build a new one just beyond it...

I suspect it's more about upgrading the actual platform, rather than the building (though it may be about that too). The old platform is lower than DFT requirements and probably in relatively poor condition too. Building a prefab platform to fit three cars would have been significantly cheaper than rebuilding.

The original platform itself is entirely fenced off apart from where there needs to be access to the footbridge.

[transadelaide]

That's been done in Australia too. A local station near me was replaced rather than upgraded due to a perfect storm of a less than ideal location, a heritage listed building full of asbestos and it being cheaper to build a new station compliant with all standards than renovate the old one. After a few years of nobody taking responsibility for either maintaining the old building or giving it some productive use, some arsonist helpfully torched it and the horrible old eyesore was condemned.

This is a conversation that is getting more and more regular here. Funds are tight and the state government is reluctant to subsidise maintenance of disused old station buildings which probably shouldn't have been built in the first place. Local governments and local non-government groups also have more important things to allocate money towards than old buildings, and people are starting to ask the question about whether a building being old automatically means it has heritage value. In my mind the answer is no, and that heritage listing should be applied more sparingly.

[prairie4566]

Clearly the assets of Culham need updating

Bridge is wrong, Brunel shelter is wrong...believe it or not, the old platform was also replaced with a new one as the new one is the correct height. The old one is slightly lower.