According to the National Rail conditions of carriage, surfboards are not permitted aboard South West Trains.

Bournemouth East MP Tobias Ellwood has recently raised the issue in Parliament in order to try to lift the blanket ban on surfboards. In the process, he’s discovered that changing the rules and allowing individual train companies to determine their own policy on surfboards is no easy matter.

Speaking last week, he said:

There is a surprising amount of red tape and a worrying number of organisations needed to change something so simple. I have written a rather plain-speaking letter to the Secretary of State asking for him to knock some heads together.

Last year, South West Trains provided funding towards a bus link between the station and the seafront to encourage visitors to the surf reef.

A spokesperson for the Association of Train Operating Companies said they were hoping to get to a position soon where individual train companies could decide their own policies.