Locking out rail passengers is not the solution

1:57pm Tuesday 25th March 2008

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A FRIEND of mine who travels to London regularly at weekends, being more environmentally-friendly than I am able to be (given my working hours and the times of last trains), always uses the train.

She parks in the top car park at the station in Wycombe, the only one available to her at the time she leaves, as the lower car park is always full.

A few Saturdays ago, when she returned at 7-30pm, she found the gate to the top car park was locked, offering the prospect of leaving the station by the main entrance, turning right up Crendon Street, right again into Totteridge Road, then via a narrow and lonely lane into the upper car park.

Being a lady on her own, and as it was a rainy night, she did not fancy this and spoke to the staff on duty to this effect. She was told that the gate had been closed for security reasons, as children "had been playing in the top car park and making a nuisance of themselves on the platform".

She enquired as to their concern for her security and the health and safety implications to her, a customer of Chiltern Railways, of which she said she had always been a great supporter.

She tells me there were four members of staff congregated around the front of the station, one of whom she persuaded to come and unlock the gate to allow her access to her car without the long walk round in the rain and dark.

She was shown a sign informing the public the gate would be closed after 2pm on Fridays and Saturdays, which seemed a stark acknowledgement that Chiltern Railways had thrown in the towel and were prepared to lock customers out in order to manage the unruly behaviour of a few children.

Leaving aside the simple tactic of using staff to secure the station, surely for instance the installation of a camera to alert staff to any trouble would quickly resolve the situation and enable the fare-paying passengers to access their cars on their return to Wycombe.

Given the resurgence of our town predicted in the wake of Eden's opening, it would seem in the interests of both the town and the railway to ensure the station is safe, convenient and attractive for customers.

Locking out passengers is not the solution. And the prospect becomes even more unsatisfactory when one brings into the equation the disabled, parents with pushchairs and the elderly.

Clearly there are a sufficient number of them to justify the recent removal of the cross barriers on the slope up to Platform 3 in order to provide easier access for prams, pushchairs and wheelchairs.

Once again the bad behaviour of a minority are to be allowed to adversely affect the lives of the majority of law-abiding paying customers and it is unacceptable.