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| Mark Clarke helps a young mum with a pushchair up the stairs at Earlsfield Station |
Our local stations have terrible access for elderly, the disabled and for mothers with pushchairs. Half our stations have no plans to fix this. For the remainder the plans are in many cases long term projects which are not yet confirmed. Wandsworth loses out as a priority areas because the Government decides where to build station lifts based upon how many elderly and disabled people there are in an area. A very demographically young Borough like Wandsworth does very badly on this criteria. The Government take no account of the numbers of young mothers and pregnant women when considering where to put a lift. As anyone with children knows, the lack of a lift can make public transport totally inaccessible.
That’s why Mark Clarke is calling on the Government to change its prioritisation criteria to include the % of young mothers in an area. This will see Wandsworth stations shoot up the priority list. Unfortunately, at current rates, babies will have grown up by the time the Government gets around to building lifts in our area.
| Overground Stations | timings |
| Earlsfield Station | maybe 2010 |
| Wandsworth Common Station | no plans |
| Balham Station | 2008 |
| Underground Stations | timings |
| Balham Station | no plans |
| Tooting Bec Station | no plans |
| Tooting Broadway Station | 2012 |