Last week I attended a site visit to Levensulme Station with representatives from Northern and Network Rail, as well as one of the local councillors. In the past few years there has been a number of issues at the station including flooding, poor lighting, and overall lack of cleanliness. I was therefore delighted to be walked through the improvements that are due to take place in the Spring.
These include:
- Removing existing wall and ceiling cladding in the subway, including gutters and existing redundant and temporary light fittings
- Deep clean and refurbish newly exposed glazed brick subway walls and fittings
- Replace existing tiled subway floor with new concrete floor slab and resin floor finish
- Install new lighting in the subway
- Install new drainage channels along both subway walls to accept discharge from gutter downpipes, and any surface water from the subway floor
- Remove existing ceilings above station entrance and platform stairs and install new boarded ceilings
While I was incredibly disappointed that Levenshulme Station wasn’t awarded any Access for All funding from the Department for Transport, despite submitting a very strong bid backed by a great community campaign, I will be continuing to explore other funding options to improve accessibility at this busy station.
However, I am very pleased that stations elsewhere in Manchester Gorton have been awarded Access for All funding. Work will start soon at Belle Vue and Ryder Brow railway stations to improve safety and accessibility.