Castleton station flower display destroyed again

Castleton Station Flowers

The floral display at Castleton train station has been destroyed for the second time.

The flowers have been uprooted from their planters and thrown across the station with whoever is responsible for the damage moving from bed-to-bed to cause the damage.

It is understood that the incident occurred on Sunday night (24 May).

This is the second time that this has happened within a few months. A similar incident recently occurred which saw the hanging baskets at the station damaged.

Councillor Billy Sheerin said: “They were due to be taken out because of winter planting and they were starting to look a bit tatty but I am still annoyed that people think they could use them as missiles to throw at one another.”

Frank Salt, from rail user group STORM, said: “I really don’t know what drives people to do this sort of thing. A lot of hard work has gone into the plants and it is just not nice to see this happening.”

The flower beds and hanging baskets were put at the station in 2012 after a grant from the Rochdale Township in Bloom committee. The project was given the go ahead by Northern Rail and the Transport Police after consultation with The Friends of Castleton Station. The project was then undertaken with pupils from Castleton primary schools.

Frank said: “It is not fair on the hard work of the school children either. They often go down and tend to the plants.”

It is currently unclear who is responsible for the damage.

Frank added: “We could guess that it is a group of youths but that would be a guess. They often hang around the station so it could be them but you never know.”

The flowers will now be re-planted and will keep being re-planted as long as this keeps happening.

“We will re-plant the flowers and we will keep re-planting them until it stops. We will keep re-planting the flowers until whoever is doing this gets fed up,”
said Frank.

Rochdale Lions has also donated £100 to help fix the damage.

Councillor Sheerin added: “That was a super donation from them and it was very nice of them to do that.

"We will keep going with the planting and we won’t be stopped. I have done this for three years without any problems so it shows that there are like-minded people in the village who like the beds.”

A planting session with pupils from local schools is due to take place in June.