Euston station opens up to homeless people on Christmas Day

London Euston may be closed to commuters on Christmas Day, but it will still be full of life this year.

The station will open up to 200 homeless people sleeping on the streets of the capital, with Network Rail volunteers helping lay on a huge Christmas feast.

The normally crowded concourse will be filled with decorations, the St Mungo’s and Streets Kitchen charities will work alongside 30 station staff to provide dinner and company for the special guests.

“Using a station to give homeless people a Christmas dinner and some festive cheer is a great thing to do,” said Steve Naybour, head of transformation in Network Rail.

“Thousands and thousands of my colleagues will already be working on Christmas Day to improve the railway for passengers.

“Working on Christmas Day is pretty much par for the course for many of us who work for Network Rail but this year, because I wasn’t scheduled to work, myself and a handful of colleagues came up with this plan to feed some of London’s homeless instead.”

This is a shining example of local businesses, community groups and individuals coming together at Christmas

Jon Glackin from Streets Kitchen, providing the food for the day, is excited about the innovative London Euston event and suggested it could be tried out at other stations.

“This is a shining example of local businesses, community groups and individuals coming together at Christmas in solidarity to assist others in need over Christmas,” she said.

“This will be a fantastic fun day for our homeless friends that we will all hope could be replicated anywhere and everywhere.”

The Big Issue has forged a unique partnership with Network Rail to allow some of our hard-working vendors to sell their magazines inside key stations.

The Big Issue Foundation, the charitable organisation working to support the vendors, has helped create special placement pitches at London Euston, King’s Cross, Liverpool Street, Birmingham New Street and Bristol Temple Meads.