Fight for Hampton Station Café

4.17.31pm BST (GMT +0100) Mon 7th Jul 2008

A local business man, Farzad Mardani, who invested £20,000 to start a popular care on Hampton Station, is now faced with a 75% net increase on his licence which will put the café at risk. Vincent Cable has appealed to SW Trains and their agent, Travel Point Trading, to lover their demands to a more affordable and reasonable level: "Mr Mardani invested a lot of his own money to create this café at no cost to SW Trains. He provides a popular service and his presence on the station enhances security. Now SW Trains are in danger of driving him away with unreasonable demands. They tried to do the same with the charity bookshop on the station site but relented after a community campaign".

"Passengers and staff are already faced with the threat of drastically reduced hours for the station personnel and now the café is under pressure. This really is short term thinking by SW Trains".