The government’s plans for the railways over the next three decades display a “poverty of ambition” on accessibility, its own advisers on accessible transport have told ministers.
They told the Department for Transport that they were “extremely disappointed” that plans for the railways in the Whole Industry Strategic Plan (WISP) would do no more than “widen accessibility”.
The criticism by the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee (DPTAC) came in its response last year to a consultation on WISP, obtained by The Association of British Commuters (ABC) through a freedom of information request.
DPTAC says WISP – described by ministers as the first version of “a 30-year strategy for the railway” – had provided a “once-in-a-generation opportunity to transform the accessibility of the rail network, which remains inaccessible to many disabled people”.
But, it says, ministerial ambition in the plan was only to “widen” accessibility, rather than provide a railway network that was fully, or at least “very largely”, accessible.
In its consultation response, DPTAC says: “The poverty of ambition exposed by the very limited aspiration to ‘widen accessibility’ continues to reflect a railway culture where accessibility remains a ‘nice to have’, and where many of Britain’s 14 million disabled people remain excluded from a vital public service and all the social, economic and other opportunities that it provides access to.”
It highlights how the “continued inaccessibility of the railway” means that “around a fifth of the UK’s population will potentially fail to benefit from the government’s plans to ‘level-up’”.
DPTAC also warns ministers in its response that a legal challenge under the Equality Act that draws attention to the discrimination faced by disabled rail passengers could force a “major reshaping” of the industry.
It suggests that one area of “potential challenge” is around disabled passengers who cannot secure assistance where “Driver Only Operated trains serve unstaffed or partially staffed stations”.
DPTAC has previously warned ministers of the “potentially toxic combination of driver-only operated trains and unstaffed stations”.
Its WISP response adds: “Given the necessarily long timescales associated with the eradication of physical barriers to access across the rail network, the availability of properly trained staff stands out as the key mitigation for what will remain, in many areas, a physically inaccessible network for the foreseeable future.”
When the Department for Transport finally published its report on the responses to its WISP consultation (PDF), it summed up the criticism of DPTAC and others as calling for a “firmer commitment to ensuring accessibility and inclusivity”.
It is just the latest document obtained by ABC that has exposed the widespread discrimination faced by disabled people across the rail network.
Last September, ABC obtained a leaked document that showed the UK’s largest rail operator – Govia Thameslink Railway – admitting it had been breaching access laws for more than 10 years across large parts of its rail network.
And last July, a DPTAC report obtained by ABC concluded that staffing levels on a section of the rail network were “completely inadequate to deliver an accessible railway”.
Yesterday (Wednesday), ABC published a blog which said that DPTAC’s WISP response and other documents secured under the Freedom of Information Act suggested that the Department for Transport (DfT) was ignoring its duties under the Equality Act.
Emily Yates, co-founder of ABC, told Disability News Service (DNS) yesterday: “This is a valuable report, making an extended warning for the DfT to apply its public sector equality duty to ‘advance equality of opportunity’.
“It suggests that the DfT has failed to make any studies on the value of accessibility to the railway and the economy; and failed to address the huge gap in usage, with disabled adults making 28 per cent fewer trips (across all transport) and travelling 40 per cent fewer rail miles than non-disabled adults.
“This absolutely proves the need for the DfT to urgently publish equality impact assessments on all departmental policies, which the Equality and Human Rights Commission requested in December.”
DfT says it has regular dialogue with DPTAC and other stakeholders about accessibility issues and has recently appointed Matthew Campbell-Hill as DPTAC’s new chair.
In March, DNS reported how Campbell-Hill had questioned whether it was right to release DPTAC reports that exposed the discrimination faced by disabled passengers.
DfT also claims that the much-criticised Passenger Assist mobile phone app has cut delays in providing assistance to disabled rail passengers.
It claims that trains have operated safely in the UK for many years with driver-only operation, and that the Office of Rail and Road, the independent regulator, has approved this approach.
A DfT spokesperson said: “Everyone should be able to travel with confidence and the department is committed to improving accessibility for all users of the rail network.
“Our Access for All programme has delivered step free accessible routes at over 200 stations [since 2006], with additional improvements at over 1,500 stations.
“By modernising the railway and moving staff out of ticket offices, we can enable them to provide more face-to-face assistance, so all passengers get the help they need.”
Meanwhile, ABC has called on DPTAC – under its new chair – to meet its own obligations under the Freedom of Information Act.
Yates said: “This consultation response should have been published over a year ago, under freedom of information law requirements for ‘proactive publication’.
“This duty is correctly followed by DPTAC’s counterpart in Scotland, the Mobility and Access Committee for Scotland (MACS), which publishes regular information across all the classes of information required, including consultation responses, meeting minutes, reports, and formal letters.
“It’s time for DPTAC to recognise that it is a public body, and that the ongoing failure to publish in the same way as every other public authority is the cause of why so much vital information on staffing and accessibility did not come out years earlier.
“This has been a key factor in helping the DfT cover up a mountain of policy failures relating to accessibility investment and railway destaffing.”
Picture by Office of Rail and Road
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