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Platform plants 'poisoned by peeing passengers'

BBC Close up of a square black planter full of flowers in red, yellow, pink and orangeBBC
The volunteers have now replaced all the dead flowers

A group of railway station volunteers have said they are disappointed the flowers they planted on the platform have died because of people urinating on them.

Over the past two weeks, three of the planters at the Church and Oswaldtwistle station have been spoiled.

Members of Church and Oswaldtwistle Rotary Club, who look after the flowers, have had to buy new plants after begonias in the planters died off.

Volunteer Dawn Taylor said: "There's no CCTV but we suspect it was done late at night by someone coming off the train and needing to relieve themselves."

Close up of Dawn Taylor standing on the platform smiling
Dawn Taylor said it's "disappointing this sort of thing happens"

"One of our volunteers came down and noticed that two of the planters had been damaged should we say, and all the flowers had wilted," she told BBC Radio Lancashire.

"It's disappointing this sort of thing happens, they probably didn't realise the damage they were doing, what uric acid would do to the planters, but it was disappointing as we've had to replace them all.

"It costs a couple of hundred pounds to buy the begonias, but it's more the effort that goes in from the volunteers, who come down every Saturday from February to October."

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