Access for All (Funding)

Tuesday 29th April 2014 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Stephen Hammond)]

Improving access to Great Britain’s railway stations is a key priority for this Government and so, despite the deficit, we have confirmed that the Access for All programme will continue. The existing programme will deliver an accessible, step-free route at more than 150 key stations by March 2015 and has already delivered smaller scale accessibility improvements at more than 1,100 stations through the small schemes fund.

I am therefore pleased to announce the stations which will benefit from the additional £100 million we have made available to extend the Access for All programme from 2015 until 2019. The selected stations will, subject to a feasible design being possible, receive an accessible route into the station and to and between each platform.

The stations due to benefit are:

Alfreton

Barry Town

Barnes

Battersea Park

Blackhorse Road

Blairhill

Cathays

Chatham

Cheltenham Spa

Elgin

Garforth

Godalming

Grays

Hamilton Central

Hebden Bridge

Hither Green

Kidsgrove

Leyland

Lichfield Trent Valley

Liverpool Central

Llanelli

Luton

Manningtree

Market Harborough

Northallerton

Peckham Rye

Penrith (North Lakes)

Petts Wood

Queen’s Park

Seven Sisters

Southend East

St Mary Cray

Streatham

Theale

Tottenham Hale

Trefforest

Virginia Water

Walton-on-Thames

Warwick

West Hampstead

Weston-super-Mare

Whitton

All work at the stations is due to be completed by the end of rail control period 5 in 2019. These measures will make a real difference to people’s lives, not only opening up access to leisure and employment for disabled rail passengers but making it easier for those with heavy luggage or children in buggies to use the network.