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Are you a wheelchair user, a person with mobility problems, elderly, a parent with a buggy or a young child or a passenger with very heavy luggage?

And are you trying to use a Tube station in Ealing ?

If so, people like you are demanding to know when the promised regeneration of Ealing Broadway and other Ealing stations will be complete and lifts installed so they can finally get access to the platforms.

Although extensive modifications to the five Crossrail stations at Acton, West Ealing, Hayes and Harlington, Southall and Ealing Broadway - including three lifts at Ealing Broadway - are being made in order to accommodate the new Elizabeth Line trains, they have been continually delayed and the contracts to build them have been retendered.

The stations currently have no access for buggies or wheelchairs and people have to struggle up the stairs at the crowded entrances.

The nearest station that has a lift is Acton Town and even by 2022 just 40 per cent of the stations on the Tube as a whole will have step free access.

"Promises are being broken"

"They haven't had disabled access forever and now they have promised to put lifts in, they are just not getting it done," said Sian Vasey who uses a wheelchair and has lived in Ealing all her life.

"Also they keep going back on what they had promised. Originally there were to be escalators and three lifts at Ealing Broadway but now there will just be lifts. You don't want to have to be queuing for the lift for 10 minutes."

Sian says she has to struggle using buses to and from Acton Town station when she wants to go anywhere.

During her career working in television she had to drive all the way to Camden becuase of the difficulties she faced using public transport.

"I worked for years but travel was always an issue. Having disabled access at Ealing Broadway could have transformed my life and made it much easier for my career," she said.

"It can't cost that much to put in these lifts. They don't need much technology. If they just did two each year they could crack it."

A "scandalous situation"

Single mother Susan New, who was a passenger in a car accident in 1992 that left her permanently on crutches and virtually disabled, has campaigned for 10 years with the Transport for All charity for greater accessibility at the stations in Ealing.

She said: "The situation at Ealing Broadway is scandalous. Even if Crossrail hadn't happened there are still 16 million people using it every year.

"I haven't used Ealing Broadway for ages and can't be bothered to try to drag [myself] down the steps.

"Instead I have to go to hospital appointments at St Mary's Hospital which take me about an hour and 45 minutes by bus."

Crossrail delays

Original plans stated that all the Crossrail stations should have been complete by the end of 2017 or the start of 2018, but in July 2017 Network Rail revised the target to summer 2019.

Last week's announcement that Elizabeth Line train services themselves won't be running until at least the autumn of 2019, has led to fears the stations could be delayed even longer.

However, Network Rail insists the project will be devivered to its revised schedule.

A spokesperson said this week: “We remain committed to delivering ticket halls that meet the needs of passengers.

“In December 2017 Network Rail began work on the foundations for the lifts, footbridge and ticket hall at Ealing Broadway and this work continues as planned.”

"The present entrance is dangerous"

Tony Miller, chair of the Central Ealing Neighbourhood Forum, said: “We have been saying for years that the present entrance is dangerous, particularly for the disabled, those with luggage or with children in buggies.”

"Since 2011 the number of people passing through the sole entrance each year has risen by 700,000. Yet despite promises to accelerate the work, no improvement has been made to what even then was a risky and unacceptable situation.

"The excuse from Network Rail for the new delay to the start of Elizabeth Line services is that there is a need for more testing time. This is not relevant to building stations as no new technology is involved.

“We cannot accept a continuation of the present situation, which presents a serious risk of injury or worse to passengers, for which Network Rail will be clearly responsible.

“We need an immediate clear, unequivocal and irreversible commitment from the very top to start work without more procrastination.”

"Their promises are worthless"

Council leader Julian Bell hs also been pushing for answers from Network Rail but he says he has lost confidence in it to such an extent that any promises they now give him will be "worthless".

He said: "For some time my confidence has been low that Network Rail would build our stations on time.

"They have re-tendered the contract to build them and still haven’t told us which company has won the contract and what the construction schedules are.

(Image: TMS)

"Two failed attempts to put in a staircase at Ealing Broadway adds to my distrust.

"Worse still we are now having to crack heads together over the delivery of the Ealing Broadway station canopy design.

"Crossrail and the owners of Villiers House are backsliding over the design which the community and council fought so hard for.

"Over the coming days I will have meetings with Crossrail, Network Rail and TfL to fight Ealing’s corner and demand assurances but after the warm words I received at the summit last autumn and the reality of delays and overspends any promises I receive will be worthless."

*Transport for All campaigners and Ealing Fields Residents' Association are holding a demonstration at Northfields station on September 17 from 9am demanding step free access at the station. There is an online petition at www.change.org/p/transport-for-london-make-northfields-tube-station-step-free