Greater Anglia Trains - Poor Access - Anna Wall

Transcript of letter from Anna Wall (Twitter ID @walla7437) to Greater Anglia Trains about poor accessibility in early December 2019.

Dear Greater Anglia,

Yet again I have been let down by your service. I am a wheelchair user who travels frequently between Norwich and London for work. Having been in London over the weekend, I needed to get the 9.00 train on Monday from Liverpool Street back to Norwich for a meeting at 11.30. Upon getting to the platform, I discovered that the train you had sent out did not have a wheelchair accessible carriage. I could not get on this train, would have to get the 9.30, and miss my meeting. I paid £49.45 for my return ticket: I want a refund of at least £24.70.

This is becoming such a regular occurrence, it is ridiculous. Last year I travelled in between carriages in the freezing cold, with no access to a loo (<https ://www.edp24.co.uk/news/disabled-woman-cold-corridor-greater-anglia-1­5789484>); 2 months ago, I was stranded at Diss station because apparently 4 hours' notice was not enough time for you to have booked me a replacement taxi (<https://twitter.com/walla7437/status/1180496752622936064?s=20>); 2 weeks ago I was on yet another train with an out of order disabled loo, in which case apparently, you will not even give me my money back?! (<https://twitter.com/walla7437/status/1194225141003231232?s=20>)

What I want to stress here, is not just the practical frustration of missing a train, but the humiliation I feel each time this happens. I am a 25-year-old professional. Yet I was reduced to tears on a train platform in front of your train staff and hundreds of commuters. The self­restraint it takes not to get angry with your staff (of course it is not their fault), when this is essentially a weekly occurrence, takes its toll. The embarrassment of, yet again, having to call my place of work to say I will miss a meeting, takes its toll. The effort to write you can email every time this happens, takes its toll. You simply cannot keep expecting disabled passengers to bear the weight - particle and emotional - of your failures. The answer to this problem is not that I email you each time to claim my money back. The answer is not that I have to build in time for the train I want to be inaccessible.
The answer is that you stop systematically discriminating against disabled passengers.

You happily run trains with no disabled loos. You happily run trains with no disabled carriages. This sends a message that disabled passengers are unimportant, an afterthought. Each time this happens, it sends a message that you do not assume that I, as a wheelchair user, will be in a rush, will be on the way to a meeting, will have a job. You assume that I have the time to simply wait for a train that will accommodate me. This is discrimination. This is not just a question of your trains being practically inadequate, but the whole ethos of your company overlooking the needs of disabled passengers.

Your consistent response to these issues has been the assurance that the new fleet of trains will be better. I don't doubt this (they can hardly be worse), but this does not mean that you can simply give up on providing decent disabled access now.
I have reached the end of my patience with this issue. You simply must do better. I have already been in contact with the local press and should inform you that I am seeking legal representation. I am also sending a copy of this email to my local MP, Clive Lewis, and will be posting this email publicly on twitter as I refuse to have this dialogue in private.