£300M upgrade for UK rail station

Friday, April 5, 2019

A new £300M funding pot aimed at improving the condition of access  across the transport network  will be benefiting seventy-three railway stations in the UK.

There will be upgradation in the footbridges and lifts over a five year period in the stations. There will also be small scale improvements like tactile paving on platform edges or adjustable ticket counters which will allow disabled passed easy travel.

At the end of the work the Department of Transport said that a major chunk of all UK rail journeys will be done through step-free stations.

Nusrat Ghani, the transport accessibility minister said that she wanted to see the 13.9 M disabled people in Britain “be impowered to travel independently”.

She went on saying that transport should be made an enjoyable experience vital for not just connecting people with work, friends and family but also experiencing the wonderful cultural , historical and natural sites across the UK.

The newly accessible sections in the next five years will help in opening routes across the country that will help them to move closer to a transport sector which is truly accessible.

People within the rail industry will be nominating the stations which would benefit from the funding. They would be selected based on a range of criteria like the footfall weighted by disability in the area, value for money, and local factors such as proximity to a hospital.

Also, the stations would be chosen based on the fair geographical spread across the country.

Keith Richards, Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee chair Keith Richards mentioned that the  access for all programme has already delivered significant improvements in access to rail travel for disabled people over the last 13 years. It’s crucial to continually build on that.

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