At last the developers acknowledged that the plans for the station are inherently unsafe - after the Office of the Rail Regulator demanded a safety investigation. So now B&NES amd Multi are trying to rush through other plans, still stubbornly refusing to acknowledge that the ramp is the safest solution. However, to do so, they have actually had to put in a proper planning application to which people can respond. Here are my objections - if you wish to use them, feel free to do so. This is a slightly fuller objection - to squeeze it down to the 6000 characters requested by B&NES I had to cut it a little.
By the way, the entrance to the lift lobby - for those in wheelchairs, with luggage, or cycles, will be through the doorway now marked Pumpkin - loadsa room, huh! Should be quite a scrum.
Before commencing my objection to this application, I should, perhaps, state my credentials for making it. My late mother was, for many years, crippled with arthritis, and when osteoporosis was added to this, she had to use a wheelchair. Sadly, in recent years, my own mobility has worsened due to arthritis in one knee. I have also spoken with many other people with a variety of incapacities, including Parkinson’s Disease. I am, therefore, acutely conscious of the difficulties faced by those with limited mobility, and their preferred options for access to the up platform, most of which are being ignored by those involved with these plans, even though the changes are being made in their name.
I also trained as a systems analyst, and I have given careful consideration to all the proposed plans for the station, and I find them riddled with flaws. This opinion is shared by a respected local architect, Anthony Pearson, whom I consulted over this. He has identified even more flaws than I had, and has made B&NES and Multi aware of them. I wish it to be made clear that in making these objections, firstly, I do know and have researched what I am talking about and secondly, Heritage, which appears to have become a dirty word to the Major Developments Team, plays no part in my objections. Indeed, one radical solution my husband, Dr Andrew Swift – who has written extensively about Brunel’s station - has proposed is to completely demolish the existing station and build a better one. I feel sure that this is the option Brunel would favour. However, I suspect that English Heritage and other conservation groups would resist this.
Finally, I am a regular user of the station.
My objections to these proposals are as follows:
THE LIFT. The lift is no larger than the previous proposed lift. This means that not only are the needs of cyclists still being ignored, but, much more seriously, in the event of someone being on a stretcher, the only way to remove them from the up platform, once the ramp is removed, would be to carry them across the line. This must be unacceptable.
Although these changes are made in the name of the disabled, it seems strange that those involved in the work are only supplying the bare minimum required under the DDA. This does not send the message that there is a genuine interest in the needs of the disabled. On top of that, it means that although it says it is a 10-person lift, it takes no account of wheelchairs, push-chairs, cyclists and those with a large amount of luggage. Given the large numbers of people who use this station, this lift is clearly inadequate.
THE NEW STAIRS. While a new exit is essential if the ramp is to be removed, this design of stair could hardly be worse. I can only assume that whoever designed this has not stood, as I have, on the up platform at about 5 o’clock. It is almost impossible to get off incoming trains, due to the press of people. The exit via the ramp is a safety valve in the best sense of the word, being entirely safe, with a wide gateway, and a level walk to a gentle slope. These stairs are winding and as steep, if not steeper, than the existing stairs. If, in the typical press of people, someone trips and falls, the results would clearly be disastrous.
ACCESS to the lift/stair lobby. This is less than a metre across. Thus, fighting their way through this doorway will be: those in wheelchairs, parents with children in pushchairs, cyclists, and those with luggage, in addition to those choosing to use the stairs. The size of this doorway seems designed to deter people from using these facilities rather than encouraging them.
In addition to this, it should be noted that the original stairs, the new exit and the emergency exit beyond it into the proposed Unit 5 are all at the western end of the station. If there is a fire at this end of the station – and with a café included in this section, that has to be considered a possibility – then there will be no escape from the other end of the platform other than passing the seat of the fire or crossing the line to the other platform.
CONCLUSION. The Design and Access statement says: The alternative locations presented within this report are the only viable alternative positions which the design team feel could either accommodate an operational lift, whilst minimising impact on the existing listed building fabric.
This is manifest nonsense. First of all, it is clear that retaining the ramp is the simplest and easiest solution. I am aware that the architects keep reiterating that it is not DDA compliant. This is at best misleading and at worst wrong. Firstly, as the D&A statement admits, it is a roadway rather than a pedestrian ramp, therefore the DDA does not apply. Thus, access from this roadway is level, and a ramp is not needed – the building thus fulfils the access rules under the DDA. Moreover, there is disabled parking at this level, access for emergency vehicles and easy access for cycles and those with large amounts of luggage arriving at this level by taxi, all of which benefits will be lost if the ramp is removed.
However, it could contain a pedestrian right of way – many people, including myself, use it as one already – when the DDA would become relevant. But it is not too steep – the architects’ own drawings show that – it merely lacks the required resting places. If parking were removed from the ramp, it would be possible to build them. I will not go into my complete plans for this, which would offer a far better station than that now proposed, including a larger and more readily accessible lift, as this is not the place – suffice it to say that retaining the ramp offers a far better and very much safer experience for users of the station than that proposed plans, though I accept that it will not fulfil the aspirations of the commercial interests involved in this development. I respectfully submit, however, as a user of the station, that passengers’ needs should come before commercial gain.
However, if, despite these obvious benefits, the various developers are set on destroying the ramp, then the obvious thing to do is to go to the old lift shaft. This would mean the loss of Dashi restaurant, but the proposals contain the reduction of the more widely used Pumpkin Café – a further cutting back of the facilities for users under these plans. Therefore, it would make more sense to reduce Dashi. Added to which, a stairway could be added at this end. This would then overcome the problems with emergency exit, and as the old lift was larger, would probably solve a number of other difficulties as well.
Unless those involved with these mad plans do not back down, then it will begin to appear that public need is being sacrificed to commercial greed. I would like to think that that is not true, and that common sense will finally prevail.
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