This afternoon I’ve purchased tickets for Aston Villa versus Chelsea at Villa Park this Sunday (16th October 2022).
After making this purchase I did what I always do and went online in order to purchase my train tickets to get to the game with my friend.
When I logged on to purchase my tickets from Trainline I realised that there are bus replacement services across the network this Sunday.
I would be able to attend the game if I travelled to Birmingham on the train this Saturday and then returned the following day on Sunday but this isn’t possible for me this weekend.
I could have used a bus replacement service to get to Birmingham this weekend if I wasn’t a wheelchair user.
However because I am a wheelchair user buses and bus replacement services are Virtually impossible for me to use.
I’m so angry that this was not advertised anywhere apart from rail operator websites because if it had have been I would have known about this prior to purchasing my football tickets for the weekend.
As I have already mentioned in this blog it is not easy for the disabled community to travel on public transport anyway but it is made 10 times harder when network rail and other train operators do things like this.
I feel cut off as a disabled person when decisions like this are made by train operators and network rail because it is not always easy for our community to travel to our destinations via taxis.
I believe that more needs to be done by rail operators and network rail with regards to the accessibility of bus replacement services for the disabled community without the need for the use of taxis.
These replacement services are becoming more and more frequent and our community is being cut off from living independently as a result of this.
Today I am writing this blog in an attempt to highlight this issue as it is something that I have been directly impacted by.
As always I would like to thank both my readers and followers for taking the time out of your busy schedules to read yet another one of my blogs.
Cam
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