Access denied for travellers in wheelchairs

 

WTF – and I can say that because it is my website and it beggars belief that Great Western Railway has now ruled out ramps for Nailsea & Backwell station.

Yes, you heard me right, after more than a decade of campaigning much has been written about the fight for ramps to give disabled people travelling to Bristol and beyond, access to the station platforms.

And success has come so tantalisingly close in fact, at the last count with funding in place GWR told campaigners they were ‘shovel ready’.

Nailsea resident Alison Morgan who was instrumental in getting the footpath under the railway bridge widened and a user-friendly path built at Backwell Lake has been involved from the beginning.

This week she was told by GWR commercial development director Matthew Golton that installing ramps was an engineering feat too far and the project has been suspended.

Mr Golton said that although work should have started on accessibility ramps in the autumn this idea has been abandoned in favour of installing a lift – something previously considered but ruled out.

Mr Golton said: “We know that the suspension of the work on the ramps will be very disappointing…but is an issue with engineering. 

“The embankments at the station have been prone to historical slippage and there is still movement within the embankments. 

“This movement, less than 2mm per annum, is within industry standards and is subject to very close monitoring by Network Rail to ensure the safety of the railway. 

“Nevertheless, the engineering issues posed by building ramps on these embankments has lead GWR to look again at the ramp designs and its impact.

“The conclusion reached is…the physical footprint of the ramps would still largely be on the embankments at some of the most sensitive locations, where movement has been detected.

“This gives rise to safety concerns about undermining the embankments which Network Rail and ourselves share and we cannot ignore.  

“We now believe that the installation of lifts at the station would prospectively be less impactful.

“In addition, we have concluded that the gradient of the proposed ramps - 1:12 at their steepest point - while a marked improvement over the current access offer, might still offer some challenges to less able-bodied customers.”

What Mr Golton has promised is further delays and a back-to-the-drawing-board approach.

In the spring of 2017 GWR is going to conduct a ‘detailed feasibility study’ to establish ‘designs, costs, operating and construction methodology’ of a lift.

Mr Golton added: “Please be assured that we will be working really hard and as fast as we can to see whether we can attain that goal.”

Alison said: “I am naturally disappointed that the decision has been reached to suspend work on the ramps.

“I am also somewhat confused as to the reasoning behind this decision as I had been told platform investigation works were complete and that there would be no need to alter the ramp proposals and that all the necessary approvals were in place to proceed once funding was secured…and I was assured the project was fully 'shovel ready'.

“When we first contacted FGW many years ago we asked about the possibility of lifts being installed and this was considered to be too problematic as the station is unstaffed, lifts could be a target for vandals and there could be maintenance and safety issues all of which led to the ramps being designed in the first place.”

And she asks ‘will the feasibility study find a way to solve these problems?’.

The long and arduous route to installing disabled access at Nailsea and Backwell railway station was recently the subject of a television documentary.

Access For All campaigners told how they had petitioned, threatened court action, appealed to the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) and asked for public support to get First Great Western to install ramps at the railway station which is on the Bristol to Exeter line.

The station which sits on top of a 40ft embankment opened in 1841 and has two platforms but little in the way of facilities which disappeared after years of cuts and privatisation.

Even on the National Rail website it says there is no staff available to help and no ramp for wheelchairs saying ‘steep flight of steps to southbound platform…ramped access to northbound platform steeper than 1:12 gradient, no wheelchair access available to trains’.

And even if a disabled person made it to the platform the next hurdle would be a large height difference from the train doors to the platform.

Back in 2011 everyone thought there was a light at the end of the tunnel when the government announced a £37.5 million scheme to improve stations under an Access For All Mid-Tier programme which allocated £1,023,000 to building new ramps at Nailsea and Backwell.

The works were due to start in 2013, but were delayed until 2014 due to a need to repair subsidence on the embankment and wait for works on the car park to be completed.

However, due to the delays the funding was withdrawn and today the fiasco continues…watch this space.