Peter Chapman

Said the following about Faye Lambert:

“Faye Lambert has been Head of Community Rail at London Midland since September 2016. Over the past 10 months, she has brought a focus to the disparate community initiatives within the Company, and has used her seemingly boundless energy to find solutions to all the funding, contractual, and personnel issues which have arisen. She is great at networking and seems to know exactly who to contact to move each of her many projects forward. Even better, she has a natural empathy with members of the public and is able to direct their enthusiasm for the railway into productive channels.

Smethwick Rolfe Street station has been a prime example of the impact that Faye has had within the Company and in the wider community. This inner-suburban station on the Birmingham to Wolverhampton line had been part of a regeneration project in the mid-1980s, specifically gaining a mural on Platform 1 created by local schoolchildren. Over the years, the mural had faded badly and parts of it were missing. Although efforts had been made on an ad-hoc basis to re-create the mural, it wasn't until Faye took the idea on board that progress began to be made. She worked with Sandwell College and Network Rail to arrange for the old mural to be removed and a new one designed, created, and installed by the students at the College. Funding was obtained from Network Rail, London Midland, and Transport for the West Midlands. Not content with the mural project, Faye has arranged for the garden to be adopted by the local community and for a former storeroom to be refurbished by students to become an exhibition area and community room. Truly an inspirational response to what was a down-at-heel station...

Faye works a notional three day week but her influence and enthusiasm is felt throughout the station network, from the art installations at Stone, Winsford, and Nuneaton to the additional inputs in the Community Rail Partnerships in Marston Vale and the Abbey Line. I am sure that my colleagues who work in the stations helped by Faye to become more community-orientated will echo my admiration for her work.“