Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People have started a petition about TransPennine Express (TPE- part of First Group) who are going to run services that are totally inaccessible to wheelchair-users. This is an abuse of the Equality Act 2010 and an abrogation of the Rights of Disabled People.
The petition can be signed here
The petition follows:
'We demand that TransPennine Express and First Group abandon this discriminatory and likely unlawful plan, and make the necessary arrangements to ensure that every train service it runs is accessible to disabled people.
DNS reports 'From July, TPE is to introduce two extra trains, each with four carriages, all of which will be inaccessible to wheelchair-users...12 of these services without wheelchair provision – six in each direction – will run every weekday between Liverpool and Scarborough via Manchester Victoria, Huddersfield, Leeds and York, using old “Mark Three” coaches.
There will be “no space on the train for wheelchairs” and that “the trains will run without wheelchair or cycle provision”.
If a wheelchair-user wants to board a service that is using the old Mark Three coaches, they will be told to catch the next accessible train instead. If two consecutive trains are inaccessible, TPE will pay for a taxi to their destination.
Six of the 17 hourly trains that run all the way from Liverpool on the west coast to Scarborough on the east coast – and the same number on the return journey – will be using Mark Three coaches, and so will be inaccessible to wheelchair-users.'
More about this issue on Disability News Service here