As someone who uses a wheelchair and travels by rail across the Midlands on a regular basis I strongly believe that there is a need for accessible waiting spaces at Ledbury railway station now and not in 5 or 10 years time.
One of the rail operators that the covers Herefordshire, West Midlands Trains needs to consider the introduction of accessible waiting spaces at the railway station in Ledbury as this would open doors for so many visitors to the area and the residents of Ledbury with disabilities and other mobility issues.
In the November of 2023 I met with senior officials from the operator at Witton Lane station near Birmingham to discuss my experiences of using the rail network across the region as a wheelchair user.
At the meeting mentioned above I suggested the introduction of accessible waiting spaces and other types of signage at stations which are either unstaffed or have high volumes of passenger assistance requests going through them.
To my surprise the operator agreed with this suggestion and began to figure out how they would set about delivering this project, they started off by installing the waiting spaces at Aston and Witton stations near Birmingham.
They have since moved onto and installed the waiting spaces and of course other types of signage at The Hawthorns, Coventry Arena, Worcester Shrub and Worcester Foregate Street stations which they mange.
There needs to be accessible waiting spaces at the station in Ledbury because currently not many disabled rail passengers travel there because of how inaccessible the station is for our community living in the area.
In a recent response to a piece by the Worcester news on the accessible waiting spaces that were recently installed at the railway stations in Worcester, a spokesperson for the rail operator said ” following the successful implementation of a designated waiting area for wheelchair users at Witton station, we are delighted to have introduced the signage to Shrub Hill and Foregate Street”.
It’s time for Herefordshire to not get forgotten when it comes to the accessibility of the rail network in our beautiful county, let’s make Ledbury train station accessible to all as it is a massive independence lifeline for our community.
If you can do it in Worcestershire then it can be done for the one station that you manage in the neighbouring county of Herefordshire, enough is enough now I personally would love to visit the market town of Ledbury by train but currently can’t.
I won’t give up on getting accessible waiting spaces at Ledbury station until it has been delivered by you for our community, please don’t wait another 5 or 10 years to deliver on it.
If you are someone who travels by rail on a regular basis and needs some assistance to both board or disembark services, your assisted travel can be booked up to 2 hours before departure in 1 of 3 ways:
By Phone: 0800 024 8998 or by using Next Generation Text – 18001 0800 024 8998.
Online: https://booking.passengerassistance.com.
By using the App: https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/passenger-assistance/id1542190496.
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Cam
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