Last week, our campaigns team visited Bridge College alongside Nathaniel Yates to kickstart our work on making the local Ashburys' train station accessible.

Nathaniel inspired our students by sharing how he has managed to secure funding for his local station, Reddish North. You can read more about his campaign here.

Ashburys train station is only 0.3 miles away from Bridge College but is inaccessible. During our visit, students told us that they were travelling by taxi or school bus to College and expressed the unfairness of facing the inaccessibility barrier.

Currently, there are 96 train stations in Greater Manchester, and less than half currently have step-free access (Statham, 2022).

Although the station requires step-free access, Ashburys is number 32 on the Greater Manchester AfA priority list, indicating that it might take years to get funding for accessibility improvements.

Going forward, we will continue to support Nathaniel’s campaign, and work towards influencing change for Ashburys train station. We want the station to become accessible so everybody can benefit from it, whether commuting to school, work or using it for leisure.

“We live in the 21st century, everything is supposed to be accessible - and the Equality Act if there for a reason. Reasonable adjustments should be made.”

Nathaniel, in a recent conversation with Manchester Evening News, 2022

What to know how you can help?

Please sign Nathaniel's petition to Stockport Council, 'How accessible is your local train station?'.

Visit your local train station in Greater Manchester or Stockport and take photos of it if it is inaccessible! Tag @NathanielSAYS and @TogetherTrust in the photo on Twitter using the hashtag #GMRailAccess.

Sign up for our campaigning updates to hear more about how we are supporting Nathaniel's campaign: https://secure.togethertrust.org.uk/sign-our-latest-campaigning-news-and-opportunities