Petition launches in bid to make South Cumbrian railway station …
Muriel Warburton on the walk to Arnside station
A petition has been launched in a bid to make a South Cumbrian railway station accessible for all.
Arnside station, which is operated by Northern, causes issues because currently older people, people with mobility issues and other disabilities, parents with pushchairs, people with heavy luggage, struggle to access the southbound platform for trains to Lancaster and Manchester Airport because the railway footbridge has 22 steps up and 21 steps down.
The only other way they can access the southbound platform is by walking on the road under the railway bridge which has no pavements into oncoming traffic as Sandside Road is the main vehicle access into the village.
They are also in danger from behind with traffic turning left out of the village from Station Road and traffic turning right from Black Dyke Road. Both junctions are blind. The road under the bridge is also occasionally flooded.
Westmorland and Lonsdale MP Tim Farron and local Liberal Democrat councillor Helen Chaffey have set up the petition.
Ms Chaffey recently took officials from Network Rail on the walk under the railway bridge to highlight the unsafe journey that some residents face to reach the southbound platform.
She said: “We must make this safer for elderly or disabled residents, who wish to travel by train but who shouldn’t have to attempt a dangerous journey to get there.”
Muriel Warburton, of Arnside, said: “I use a rollator to assist my walking, but I cannot carry it over the footbridge to reach platform 2, in order to travel towards Carnforth or further south.
“This means walking along the edge of the road, – no footpath – and crossing the road to go under the railway bridge, where two-way traffic expects to have right of way, and does not expect to see a pedestrian with a rollator.
“This could be a mother with a pram or any other traveller with luggage too heavy to carry over the footbridge. It is especially dangerous at dusk with no street lighting.”
The petition can be signed here.[1]