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Health and safety defeats common sense

A wheelchair-bound woman was told she would have to take a train for 30 miles in order to cross to an opposite platform.

According to a local website, Julie Cleary, 53, was hoping to use a new £2.8m lift at Staplehurst train station in Kent so she could get out of the station after a day trip to London but was told she could not use it because of “health and safety”.

Miss Cleary was told instead to catch a train to Ashford International Station, 15 miles away, and back so she would end up on the right platform which was just 20 yards away.

he said: “We’d come back from London and when we got back to the station we wanted to use the new lift to get back over the tracks and it was closed. The lights were on but there was a metal bar over the button. We couldn’t use it.

“We were told to wait for the next rain to Ashford, cross the tracks and come back to get on the other side of the platform - which was 15 - 20 yards away. That was our only choice.”

Miss Cleary, who has been forced to use a wheelchair since suffering a spinal aneurysm when she was 12-years-old, said she was told the high-tech lift could only be used when the station was manned and the only other way across was to take a 30 mile round trip to Ashford International station.

She told a local website: “Not wanting to do that, I have family in the village, and they came down and helped get me up and over the steps and down the other side. My friends were brilliant, but it was still embarrassing simply not being able to leave the station.

Miss Cleary complained to her MP Anne Widdecombe and received an apology from Southeastern trains along with £30 of rail vouchers

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .