"pale shadow of its former self". He called for its refurbishment to be included as part of the next Greater Anglia franchise. In early 2013, work began on redeveloping the exterior of the station with £1 million of funding from Suffolk County Council. One aim of the redevelopment was to create a more efficient transport interchange with bus routes within the town. The works include the resurfacing of the car park and adjoining land to create 70 additional car parking spaces, as well as redesigning the taxi rank and installing modern bus shelters with electronic information boards. Initial discussions took place in mid 2013 to renovate empty units within the station, in particular the former café which was housed in the large structure facing Station Square, with the help of local groups. On 18 February 2014, Peter Aldous MP officially opened a "Bike & Go" outlet at the station. Goods traffic Even by the late 1970s Lowestoft was still handling 25,000 tonnes of freight, an increase of some 18,000 compared to the mid 1970s. Goods consisted of domestic coal which was brought by train to a concentration depot at the end of Rotterdam Road, imported steel ingots which were sent on by rail, scrap metal exported to Spain by A. King & Sons and brought to Lowestoft by rail, imported Ford cars and container trains after an Orient Overseas Container Line ship was diverted from Felixstowe. The sleeper works was also producing around five wagon loads of concrete sleepers, posts and platform sections a day. Traffic declined in the 1980s as a result of national policies and trends, the withdrawal of vacuum-braked wagons leading to a loss in coal traffic and the increase in charges for imported steel resulting in this traffic moving to other ports. There are still sidings to the station which are rarely used, although they no longer cross Station Square into the docks or across Commercial Road to what is today a car park and shop. Lowestoft remains a destination for specialised freight services which carry materials used in the offshore North Sea gas production industry. A wide variety of diesel locomotives have hauled these trains to over the years, including Classes 31, 37, 47, 58, 66 and 67. For many years, the frozen food industry in the area despatched much of its production by rail and in 1989, there was still a daily Speedlink service