When is disabled access going to be sorted out at Nunhead Station (and at other local stations)? It's bad enough parents of young children having to struggle up the stairs with buggies, but yesterday I saw a disabled man hauling himself up the stairs on his knees - against the exiting rush hour crowd - while someone else carried his wheelchair.
I must admit I don't even know who to complain to - as Nunhead councillor Fiona Colley found last year, this and other station issues can get passed from pillar to post between South Eastern railways, Network Rail and the Department of Transport. Presumably Transport for London are somewhere in the mess too.
Brockley Station has at least been promised investment to make it accessible - but not until 2012 at the earliest.
They are just creating disabled access at Crofton Park, one stop down the line, where there are also steep steps. One of the entrances opened a week or so ago and they seem to be about to open another entrance on the second platform.
ReplyDeleteDenmark Hill has the same problems: people arriving for a hospital appointment at King's who can't negotiate the horrible steep stairways. This Crofton Park work is a good sign though - thought I might write to thank them, but mainly to find out what else they are doing on that line.
The priority with these things is, of course, weighed up by cost vs. benefit. Some people will benefit from a disabled ramp over the entire network, but a lot won't. When you remove the PC/inclusivist aspect from it, you at least then see why money often goes elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteIt will come, in time, and I'm glad the associated bodies aren't being pressed ganged into giving this more importance than other serious issues.
I accept that given limited resources, Denmark Hill might be more of a priority than Nunhead given its proximity to the hospital. But I don't like anonymous's use of the term PC in this context - it makes it sound as if the entirely reasonable expectation that people who struggle to use stairs should not be denied access to trains is ideologically driven.
ReplyDeleteThey are just creating disabled access at Crofton Park, one stop down the line, where there are also steep steps. One of the entrances opened a week or so ago and they seem to be about to open another entrance on the second platform.
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