Julie Cleary, 53, was hoping to use a new £2.8 million 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.
She 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.
There's a news video here.
5 comments:
"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."
And the moron who told her that without bothering to think of a more reasonable solution is still employed....?
<span>Foreigner1</span><span></span><img></img> if they would have used the lift they would have been fired. It's not about making sense in a country where no one is willing to accept that they are responsible for themselves, it's about limiting liability. If the woman in the wheelchair hurts herself in the lift and there's no staff there when she uses it it's lawsuit time.
They needed a solution for people who can't use stairs to get to the other platform, since the next-nearest opportunity to cross is 15 miles away... So they put in a lift, but it can only be used when manned, and it's not always manned, even when the station is open.
I think a ramp would have been a better idea.
...perhaps I'm being foolish, but wouldn't a bridge work just as well if the lift isn't in operation?
disgusting, health and safety seems to be the excuse used all the time to piss people off and push them around.
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