VOLUNTEERS who have spent hours keeping a South Lakeland railway station spick and span have had their efforts rewarded.

The Friends of Kents Bank Station and Foreshore achieved the gold standard in the It's Your Station category of the UK Community Rail awards at a presentation ceremony in Glasgow.

Group co-ordinator Valerie Kennedy, who attended the event with treasurer Margaret Carter, said it was a "remarkable achievement" for a team of volunteers working at a small un-manned station.

"Sadly, the group were not the overall winners of the It’s Your Station category," she said. "That honour went to the Friends of Glossop Station, but we are proud to have been amongst the small number of stations who achieved the gold standard in this national award."

Ms Kennedy said the success would not have been possible without support and encouragement from Northern, Network Rail and Community Rail Cumbria (CRC).

And she added that Jim Trotman (CRC) had provided volunteers with invaluable help and advice when the group was formed in September 2015 and, since his retirement in April, has maintained his interest in the group by joining work mornings and assisting with on-going projects.

The judges visited 48 short-listed stations during July and August. They were impressed by Kents Bank station’s location beside Morecambe Bay and fascinated by the early photographs that volunteers had used to illustrate on the history boards installed on the road side waiting room.

Their visit to the station coincided with the summer drought. The group’s water butts had run and volunteer gardeners were bringing water from their homes to help plants in the platform garden plots and raised beds on the foreshore to survive. Some volunteers even took plants home for rehabilitation and then replanted them at the station after the rain returned. The judges were impressed by the dedication and enthusiasm of the volunteer gardeners.