Accessibility rights campaigner Nathaniel Yates began his journey to improve disability access on public transport across Greater Manchester as a student at Stockport College, and since then he has received the backing of several MPs, community leaders, and now the support of Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester.
Nathaniel’s petition, which is just shy of its 2,000 signatures target, asks that the leaders of Councils across Greater Manchester should ‘make local train stations more accessible for people with physical and invisible disabilities’.
Nathaniel tells us: “Everyone should have equal rights regardless as to whether you have a disability or not. It is through my personal experience that I have seen local train stations fall short of providing ease of access to platforms. By installing wheelchair ramps and lifts, we can make them more accessible for everyone.
Less than 60% of Greater Manchester’s train stations have step free access. If ramps were available at my local train station I would have used these instead of the steps as they were hard to manoeuvre, causing me to fall.”
Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, said: “Across the world, the most successful city-regions have one thing in common – an affordable, integrated and accessible transport network. People in Greater Manchester have made clear that they will not settle for second best any longer – that is why on day one of my second term as Mayor I vowed to accelerate the delivery of a world-class transport network for our city-region and its people. It is absolutely critical to our future economic and social prosperity.”
Sign Nathaniel’s petition here: https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/how-accessible-is-your-local-train-station