Redhill Train Station Accessibility

As you may remember, we have been campaigning against the new development that was proposed for Redhill Train Station. The proposed development would mean that Disabled people could no longer use the station safely. Nikki, and Yasmin attended the hearing at Reigate Town Hall in September and spoke on behalf of Disabled people. Nikki, was cross examined by the developers barrister. 

Since the hearing in September, we asked a few of our lovely members to help us make a video to show the impact that the proposed development would have on Disabled people using the station. Big thank you to Steve, Robin and Jean for helping us with this. In the video, we outlined: 

• The Disabled Parking would be moved away from the main ticket office, meaning that people would need to travel up and down a steep hill to access the ticket office from the car park. Manual wheelchair users would not be able to do this independently
• There is a tunnel as part of the hill that is noisy, busy and would feel unsafe outside of daylight hours. 
• Only ticket machines would be available by the top car park – some of our members wouldn’t be able to use the ticket machines without assistance 

You can watch our video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKhsBlilzks

Nikki Roberts, CEO, Surrey Coalition of Disabled People. “We are delighted that the planning inquiry has dismissed the appeal by the developers. The proposed changes would have had a huge impact on Disabled people. If the proposals had been approved many of our members would no longer be able to use the station safely. It’s so important that accessibility is considered at the outset of planning. Working with local Disabled people or Disabled people’s organisations will ensure that the proposals meet the needs of the whole community”