Calls for toilets to reopen at 'bleak' bus station

Passengers have called for the toilets and waiting room to be reopened at a city centre coach station, after the facilities were closed four years ago.

National Express ended its lease on the premises in 2021 because it was "no longer commercially viable to staff the site", the company stated at the time, with operation of the site handed to the council.

The coach company still uses the site to pick up passengers, who are now forced to wait outside among broken glass and grafitti.

A public transport campaign group described the coach station as "unwelcome and uninviting", but Newcastle City Council has said it cannot afford to reopen the facilities.

The BBC visited the coach station and found graffitti on the bins and smashed beer bottles on the ground where passengers wait for buses.

Passengers using the station were unimpressed.

Dean Carter, who was visiting Newcastle from Worcester, said he would like to see the faciliites reinstated, and for the station to be made "a bit of a nicer area".

David Bowen, a 66-year-old carer, said the unstaffed facility meant passengers like himself were unable to buy a ticket in person, adding he was not good with computers so purchasing online was more challenging.

"I want to see a ticket office. Just a ticket office for buying a ticket over the shelf - that would be nice," he said.

"You can't get a human being any more."

Another passenger said when she had last used the station a young man had been sick near the pick-up point.

Alistair Ford, Newcastle chair of the North Public Transport Users Group, has called for the site to be upgraded.

Mr Ford said it was not suitable for vulnerable coach passengers.

"The Newcastle coach 'stop' can be a bleak place on a sunny day, but it is even worse in the cold, wind, or at night," he said.

"It is a place that is quite secluded and away from natural surveillance, making it an unwelcoming, uninviting place to have to wait during the hours of darkness."

The site is now being operated as a "coach stop" by Newcastle City Council, which told the Local Democracy Reporting Service it was not obliged to offer toilets or other facilities, and could not afford to do so.

A spokesperson for National Express said it was continuing a dialogue with the council "with the aim of improving the experience of our passengers".

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