{"id":337893,"date":"2025-08-12T07:44:18","date_gmt":"2025-08-12T07:44:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/337893\/"},"modified":"2025-08-12T07:44:18","modified_gmt":"2025-08-12T07:44:18","slug":"navigating-birmingham-in-a-wheelchair-is-incredibly-trying-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/337893\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Navigating Birmingham in a wheelchair is incredibly trying’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rachael Lewis<\/p>\n

BBC Radio WM<\/p>\n

Leanne Allen often struggles to navigate big cities due to people parking in front of dropped kerbs<\/p>\n

When travelling from Solihull to Birmingham, Leanne Allen’s journey is disrupted as soon as she starts. <\/p>\n

The 35-year-old is a writer, and relies on public transport when travelling for work, but as a wheelchair user she often faces delays due broken lifts, assistance not arriving, and inconsiderate parking. <\/p>\n

The lift at Chiltern Railways’ Solihull Station has been broken for six weeks, with the rail operator providing taxis and apologising for the issue.<\/p>\n

Ms Allen said: “If I can’t cross a road on Monday, and on Tuesday I get left on the train, and on Wednesday the lift is broken, the cumulative effect of that is just incredibly tiring. <\/p>\n

“The overall message is, listen to disabled people.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The lift at Solihull station has been broken for six weeks, causing disruption for every journey Ms Allen makes<\/p>\n

The free replacement taxis mean Ms Allen can still travel, but it extends her journey by at least 30 minutes, if not longer at rush hour. <\/p>\n

However, on one occasion a taxi did not arrive, with Ms Allen saying passenger assistance at Chiltern told her “there was nothing more they could do”<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the rail operator has since told the BBC “there were some difficulties sourcing a taxi”.<\/p>\n

They added that the company was “continuing to work with Network Rail to resolve a fault with the lift at the station” but despite temporary fixes, “the lift continues to have persistent issues”.<\/p>\n

Once in Birmingham, there are more problems to navigate, Ms Allen uses dropped kerbs to cross the road safely, however these are often blocked. <\/p>\n

Ms Allen said she experienced “people parking across them, leaving bikes, bin bags, scaffolding. Lots of obstacles”.<\/p>\n

“It just feels very dangerous,” she added. “I don’t think anyone takes any notice of the signage, I just don’t think people see it as a punishable thing, so they won’t stop doing it if there is no consequence”<\/p>\n

\"Woman<\/p>\n

Once in Birmingham, there are more problems for Ms Allen to navigate, including people blocking dropped kerbs<\/p>\n

Ms Allen also travels to London for work and leisure, and said she faced similar difficulties there. <\/p>\n

Even getting to the capital can be problematic, as rail operators occasionally forget to send assistance when the train arrives. <\/p>\n

“Now they have got an app, it has made a really big difference. But in terms of actually actioning the assistance, I’ve had so many fails. <\/p>\n

“I’ve been left on so many trains where people just haven’t brought the ramp to get me off. I can’t even describe the level of anxiety it creates.” <\/p>\n

“I’m not an angry person but by the end of the week I think, I’m just trying to live a normal life, and these things are so easily avoidable 99% of the time.” Ms Allen added. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rachael Lewis BBC Radio WM Leanne Allen often struggles to navigate big cities due to people parking in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":337894,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7820],"tags":[855,748,393,4884,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-337893","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-birmingham","8":"tag-birmingham","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115014681844589054","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337893\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/337894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}