Lawrence Hill and Stapleton Road stations must be accessible

This morning I again challenged another transport minister – this time George Freeman MP – over the accessibility of two stations in my constituency: Lawrence Hill and Stapleton Road. I’ve previously highlighted in Parliament how appalling it is that some disabled passengers are still seriously disadvantaged by the lack of step-free access in parts of Bristol’s local train network. For example, wheelchair users in Lawrence Hill can only access the platform to travel in one direction, which means that if they want to travel to the main station at Temple Meads, they need to travel up the line, cross the railway and catch another train down.This changes a five-minute journey to more than 35 minutes in some cases. And if you need more time to change trains, the journey could take almost an hour – an incredible waste of time for a direct journey of around a mile.Step-free access at this station has been promised for some time (and earlier this year I met Transport Minister Nusrat Ghani to urge that this work be done promptly). That’s why I’m rather frustrated by the minister’s response today. The Access to All scheme involves a process of bidding for funds (and, in the case of Lawrence Hill and Stapleton Road, not being shortlisted because of criteria like footfall and absence of ticket machines), when government money should be available now to make our transport infrastructure properly accessible.

Posted by Thangam Debbonaire MP for Bristol West on Thursday, October 24, 2019