Disabled Access to Railways

Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Economy and Transport – in the Senedd at 2:03 pm on 2 October 2019.

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Photo of Ken Skates Ken Skates Labour 2:03, 2 October 2019

Well, quite the opposite. We've made available £10 million as match funding for the UK Government's Access for All programme. We nominated 15 stations for the Access for All programme. We were pleased, of course, that seven of our 15 were accepted, but eight were not—Ruabon was one of them. However, I can tell the Member today that we will be progressing, again, with the latest round of Access for All nominations, and those stations that were not included in the last priority list by the UK Government will be put forward again. But in addition to this, we've also announced that there'll be £15 million of funding available for stations across the Wales and borders franchise to improve accessibility, and we'll be looking at those stations where disabled passengers at the moment face the biggest barriers in terms of accessing services.

Ruabon station I'm more than familiar with because it's my local station, and I was bitterly disappointed, therefore, that the UK Government decided not to utilise the money that we, as a Welsh Government, were putting forward for improved facilities. But I do hope that in the spring, when they put out the call for additional nominations, that they will accept Ruabon station.