WORK starts next week on improvements to Dawlish railway station. 

The station car park will be closed for a week to allow for resurfacing. 

Train operator Great Great Western Railway is warning customers that there will be no parking spaces in the station car park off Richmond Place from the evening of June 23 until it reopens on Monday 1 July.

GWR Station Manager for South Devon Stephanie Chapman said: ‘Dawlish station has seen some great improvement over the last few months, including becoming fully accessible, and it is good to see this continue with the resurfacing of the car park.

‘We do however need to warn customers that there will be no parking at Dawlish from Monday 24 to Monday 1 July, while this work is carried out, and we’re sorry for any inconvenience that will cause you.’

The works will see the car park resurfaced and repainting of the parking bays.

It is the latest round of improvements at the station, part of the wider scheme by Network rail along the length of the coastal railway between Dawlish and Teignmouth to protect it for the future. 

The station has already undergone extensive work over the last few years. 

This has included a new footbridge and, for the first time in the station’s history, a lift which has improved accessibility for both the disabled and for families with pushchairs. 

Work has also improved the distance between platforms and trains, while reconstructing the seaward platform and multimillion pound resilience works to the sea wall as part of the South West Resilience Programme.

The work is due to be completed and the car park reopened for the start of service on Monday July 1.

Opened in 1846, the station was badly damaged during the devastating storms of 2014 which washed out the track bed and made an 80-metre breach in the sea wall. 

Part of the work has included raising the sea wall, which has been replaced around the station, to the level of the platform.

Platform lighting has also been improved.