Strawberry Hill — New Fencing Replaced

[Dr_Paul]

Some ten months back I posted the following:

Travelling through Strawberry Hill station the other week, I noticed that brackets had been attached to the fencing posts on the up (towards Twickenham) platform; travelling through this week, I noticed that a solid fence of fairly substantial timber boards, around half an inch thick and over six feet high, is being erected, hence the brackets that I previously saw. I'm rather puzzled by this: the line here is on a steep embankment of around 10 feet high, the previous wire fencing was around five feet high and seemed perfectly adequate to prevent unauthorised access to and from the platform. Especially at a time when money for the railways is short, this seems an odd thing to do. If there actually has been unauthorised access, might not the usual hefty metal fencing be adequate? Can anyone explain why this has been done?​

Whatever the reasons for the erection of this fencing, it has now been removed and replaced by chain-link fencing, not dissimilar to that which the wooden fence replaced. There has been some discussion on the local gossip site, and one correspondent claims that it's been replaced because of the fight amongst a group of youth at the station a few weeks back, which led to the death of one young man. Apparently the wooden fencing prevented people living next to the railway from seeing the fight on the platform and so they did not call the police to deal with the situation. Might there be some truth in this, or is there some other reason?

 

[misar]

Some ten months back I posted the following:

Travelling through Strawberry Hill station the other week, I noticed that brackets had been attached to the fencing posts on the up (towards Twickenham) platform; travelling through this week, I noticed that a solid fence of fairly substantial timber boards, around half an inch thick and over six feet high, is being erected, hence the brackets that I previously saw. I'm rather puzzled by this: the line here is on a steep embankment of around 10 feet high, the previous wire fencing was around five feet high and seemed perfectly adequate to prevent unauthorised access to and from the platform. Especially at a time when money for the railways is short, this seems an odd thing to do. If there actually has been unauthorised access, might not the usual hefty metal fencing be adequate? Can anyone explain why this has been done?​

Whatever the reasons for the erection of this fencing, it has now been removed and replaced by chain-link fencing, not dissimilar to that which the wooden fence replaced. There has been some discussion on the local gossip site, and one correspondent claims that it's been replaced because of the fight amongst a group of youth at the station a few weeks back, which led to the death of one young man. Apparently the wooden fencing prevented people living next to the railway from seeing the fight on the platform and so they did not call the police to deal with the situation. Might there be some truth in this, or is there some other reason?

There is another reason, explained here. The residents are unhappy - for the opposite of your suggestion.
In any case one would hope unmanned stations are monitored via CCTV rather than relying on neighbouring residents looking out of their windows.