Contribution
I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak with you in the Chair, Ms Furniss. I will focus most of my speech on Rugeley Trent Valley station, which is of interest to my constituents, particularly those in Rugeley and Brereton, even though it is technically just over the border in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Dave Robertson)—a neighbour constituency-wise and in the Chamber today.
As we know, transport connectivity does not stop at constituency or council boundaries, and neither does the impact of stations where the facilities are not adequate for everybody. Rugeley Trent Valley is a striking example. The station has three platforms, yet only platform 3, serving trains towards Lichfield and London, is step-free. Platforms 1 and 2, serving far-distant locations like Birmingham, Stafford and Crewe, can be reached only via a steep footbridge. In practice, wheelchair users, parents with prams, older people and those with limited mobility are effectively barred from using two thirds of the station. With the delays that often characterise Avanti West Coast services and short connection times, running across from one platform to the next is simply not an option for many of my constituents.
Let me give some real-life, human examples. One constituent in her 80s told me that she can no longer visit her family because she cannot carry a suitcase up and down the steep staircases safely. That highlights how the barriers are not limited to wheelchair users. Another constituent recounted travelling with a friend who has serious mobility issues from the waist down. He arrived at the station to discover that the only way for him to catch their connecting train was to physically haul himself up and down the stairs. Station staff did what they could, but goodwill alone cannot overcome infrastructure that excludes so many people in our communities.
People are desperate to make journeys for work, healthcare, or family reasons, and they will often attempt unsafe routes if no accessible alternatives exist. While the British Transport police and station operators do what they can to manage risks, long detours or temporary measures are no substitute for basic dignity and safety.
Using the database of the Office of Rail and Road, I noticed that more than 200,000 people exited and entered Rugeley Trent Valley station in 2024-25. A constituent highlighted that other stations on the network, even ones with fairly similar footfall or electrified lines, such as Kidsgrove station near Stoke-on-Trent, have been upgraded with lifts, waiting rooms, and toilets. Clearly, it is not a question of engineering impossibility, but of prioritisation.
West Midlands Trains and London Northwestern Railway have told me that they fully support installing lifts at Rugeley Trent Valley. They acknowledge the station’s accessibility issues and the impact on passengers, but as many hon. Members will know, major upgrades such as this fall under Network Rail’s Access for All programme, which is always heavily oversubscribed. Over 2,500 stations in the country require upgrades, and Network Rail applies strict criteria, prioritising stations by passenger numbers and the proximity of the next accessible station. For Rugeley, nearby stations such as Stafford or Lichfield Trent Valley score higher under that system.
Although Rugeley has been discussed and even shortlisted in the past, the next allocation of funding is still several years away. In the meantime passengers are offered so-called mitigations, such as being carried to the next accessible station and sent back again or provided with discretionary road transport. For many of my constituents those are simply not viable or dignified solutions. They are workarounds for systemic failure, showing exactly what regional inequality looks like, with smaller towns often having to wait endlessly at the back of the queue while people with the greatest need are left to navigate shortcomings in the system.