Finsbury Park Step Free Access Campaign
Transport for All
Finsbury Park Step Free Access campaign will...
Finsbury Park Step Free Access campaign will be holding another petitioning session outside the station at 5pm on Monday 26th October. If you use the station, please make sure you sign. If not, you can sign the online petition by following the link at the bottom of this page.
Finsbury Park is one of the busiest stations outside of central London. There are a staggering 49.1 million passenger journeys made there each year – a figure which is set to rise considerably over the next ten years. The station however has never been accessible and therefore local disabled and older communities rejoiced when it was announced by the previous Mayor of London that the Station would be made step free – part of an accessible ‘foundation network’ of tube stations that would amount to 33% of the entire network.
Unfortunately London’s new Mayor, Boris Johnson has announced that financial pressures on Transport for London mean that the ‘step free’ programme will have to be cut back. Now the ‘funded promise’ from TFL is that 25% of the network will be made step free by 2010 – with a further 4% of the network made accessible by 2018.
This means that plans to make a number of stations step free have now been ‘deferred’ indefinitely. Finsbury Park is one of those stations that have been struck off the list– much to the dismay of local disabled people who have launched campaign to overturn the decision.
Led by the Islington Disability Network and local elected representatives including Jeremy Corbyn MPand Jennette Arnold AM – Transport for All has joined the campaign to make Finsbury Park step free – and therefore make it accessible for all disabled and older people as well as parents/carers with young children.
The case put forward is a strong one – especially as Network Rail is continuing with plans to provide step-free access from the overground platforms to street level at Finsbury Park. It has now given Transport for London and the Mayor until the autumn to change their minds on working together to make Finsbury Park step-free.
An on-line petition has been launched (hard copies are also available on request) and Transport for All urges everyone to sign it! The petition will be handed over to the Mayor in the Autumn.
Sign the ‘Give Us Access to Finsbury Park station’ petition.
A previous article detailing the entire list of ‘deferred’ Tube stations can be found here.
