Sight Scotland launches ‘Pave the Way’ campaign to have tactile paving installed in every train station in Scotland
Sight Scotland, and Sight Scotland Veterans, have slammed the Scottish Government for placing lives at risk by forcing blind and partially sighted people to play tactile paving roulette in train stations across the country.
In August of last year, the Minister for Transport confirmed that tactile paving was installed in eighteen train stations around the country and said that all the remaining one hundred and forty-eight stations owned and managed by Scotland’s Railway will have tactile paving installed by the end of 2023. Unfortunately, this promise has been reneged on.
For most people living with a visual impairment, public transport is the only means they have to make journeys around the country. Tactile paving is a system of textured ground surface indicators that are primarily designed to assist individuals with visual impairments.
These tactile indicators typically consist of raised patterns or distinctive surfaces that can be felt underfoot or with a mobility aid, such as a cane. At a railway station, without tactile paving to indicate where the platform ends, visually impaired people face a serious risk to their safety and could fall onto the train tracks.
Craig Spalding, Chief Executive of Sight Scotland and Sight Scotland Veterans, explains: “We are launching this campaign as a lack of tactile paving at railway stations poses serious safety risks for many blind and partially sighted people.
“While we welcome the completion of phase 1 to upgrade the eighteen high priority stations, the Scottish Government’s deadline has been and gone for the remaining one hundred and forty-eight train stations without tactile paving.
“This is completely unacceptable and as a result many people with vision impairment are having to play tactile paving roulette, as they do not know what to expect from one station to the next.
“This is not scaremongering, or an over exaggeration; without tactile paving to indicate where the platform ends, visually impaired people face a serious risk of falling onto train tracks. We’re calling on the Minister for Transport to urgently upgrade all train stations in Scotland with tactile paving so that blind and partially sighted people can use our railways safely.”
Samantha Gough, a visually impaired athlete from Edinburgh, who recently had an horrendous experience whilst travelling by rail, is backing the campaign and says action needs to be taken before a serious accident occurs.
“I recently travelled to England by train and needed to change at Doncaster. Unfortunately, no-one was there to help me, and the station did not have tactile paving. It was a nightmare, a horrendous situation to be in, fast trains were screaming past with the wind hitting me and despite screaming on the platform for help, no one heard. People have died falling on the tracks before and I thought it was about to happen to me.”
Please support Sight Scotland and Sight Scotland Veterans’ Pave the Way campaign by writing to the Transport Minister to demand that tactile paving is installed on all stations in Scotland: https://sightscotland.eaction.org.uk/tactile-paving-now
For more information visit: sightscotland.org.uk or sightscotlandveterans.org.uk