2-hour wheelchair trip to switch platforms

A WHEELCHAIR user was sent on a two hour rail journey simply to get from one platform to another because of broken lifts.

Ann Bates, ironically on her way to a meeting to advise rail bosses on facilities for disabled passengers, arrived at City Thameslink on time - but was told she couldn't leave the station. The lift on the northbound platform was out of action and because she can't use an escalator, there was no way of leaving the station.

Instead, staff told her to make the twohour round trip to Luton Airport and back simply to arrive at the southbound platform - where a lift was working.

Ms Bates, from Worthing, had left her home in good time to attend the meeting of the Strategic Rail Authority at the Department of Transport. But even then she had to leave from a different station as lifts at her usual Worthing station were also broken.

She said: "When I got to City Thameslink the lift had stopped working and I cannot use the escalator because I am in an electric wheelchair. I was two hours late for my meeting and they weren't very happy until I told them why.

They were a bit stunned."

When she set out in the morning, Ms Bates had to leave from West Worthing station instead of her local Worthing, where the lift was broken. It had recently been replaced at a cost of pounds 300,000 but last week broke down due to flooding - the exact reason the old one was replaced.

Marsid Greenindge, spokesman for South Central trains, said: "Hopefully by the end of the week it will be working again. We apologise to that customer."

Ms Bates said: "These things tend to happen to people in wheelchairs. The system was not set up for us. I have ended up in Luton airport before for the same reason.

"If you are disabled you have to book two days in advance and there should be a little forward thinking to find out if the facilities are working. If somebody had got me off at London Bridge, a few stops earlier, I could have got a taxi from the station."

A spokesman for Thameslink said: "The problem for us is unless we know who the person who told her to go to Luton station is, it's difficult for us to take action. We apologise and are very sorry about it - we do not like it any more than she does."

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