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.