North Wales Assembly Mark Isherwood Member is urging people to provide himself and other elected representatives with evidence they can use to present to Network Rail in a bid to secure funding for improvements to Shotton Station from the “Access for All” Programme.
Mr Isherwood, who in a meeting with Network Rail in October discussed problems with accessibility at the station, was disappointed to receive a subsequent Network Rail response stating “When the last round of Access for All funding was allocated, Shotton was not included as the highest priority on the last list for the Secretary of State to choose from”.
However, Network Rail also assured Mr Isherwood that they will “continue to hold it in mind as a potential candidate for future rounds of funding” and said “we always listen carefully to representations from elected representatives and local communities.”
Mr Isherwood is therefore urging rail users to make their views know to himself and other elected representatives so that they can pursue this.
He said:
“I hope people will provide us with the evidence we need to support our representation on their behalf. Recommendations to the UK Secretary of State for Transport are made locally based on a range of criteria including the number of passengers using the station, the prevalence of protected characteristics such as disability and age amongst the local population, as well as other factors including the difficulty and cost involved in improving access.”
Access for All is a UK Government Programme which 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.
An additional £100 million has been made available by the UK Government to extend the programme from 2015 until 2019.