COMMUTERS at a Salford train station have been celebrating after it was awarded £50,000 for essential upgrades.

Swinton station is one of 223 stations across the country to be awarded the grant from the Department of Transport’s small schemes fund, which contributes over £6m for small-scale upgrades.

The money is then matched by train companies and local authorities to provide improvements such as disability access and passenger information systems.

Swinton station, which lies on the Atherton line, has been given £50,000 from the Department of Transport’s purse to fund upgrades including a public address system and CCTV.

There will also be increased help points and posters with information on the station.

Nearby businesses hope the windfall, announced last week, will be a boost for the local economy by bringing more people into Swinton and the surrounding shops.

Irene Gibson, who works at Chappell’s Butchers, in Station Road, said: "It can only be a good thing that the station has been awarded this amount of money. Anything that brings more people into Swinton is fine by me.

"The town is looking really good now, and the precinct has got a lot of shops in it now so Swinton is a good place to come. This makes it easier for people to get here."

Swinton’s station is one of the most basic in the area, and has few provisions for those with mobility problems. There are 31 steps to get to the platforms, which have no passenger information on them.

Transport chief Councillor Roger Jones said: "We are delighted with the money that Swinton train station has received from the Department of Transport. The thing with Swinton is that we saw it and realised that a lot of good work could be done there, so we put in the bid to the Small Schemes fund.

"We put in bids for other stations across the region and are glad that we got the funding on all of them."

Last year, Cllr Jones said train stations in Greater Manchester will not be updated until 2017 - five years after the controversial congestion charge is due to be introduced. Controversial plans for a Toll Tax, in 2012, came with a pledge to improve public transport before it came into force.