Toilets.... Hmmm....
2
2
Date of visit: May 2019
I have experience of challenges around: moving around
Overall Rating
Poor
I don’t know how people find their way around this railway station, without the help of the Railway Assist. When booking a train, ASK FIR ASSISTANCE IF YOUR JOURNEY MEANS GOING THROUGH THIS STATION!!!!!! The railway assist staff are very helpful, but they are very hard to understand as, for a lot of them, English is not there first language, and they cannot comprehend and empathise my disability and they think I’m just ‘putting it on’. There is only one accessible toilet in the whole of the railway station and that isn’t very good. There isn’t any facilities for helping disabled people interchange to the London Underground and there are no announcements on the station. There are lots of lifts, but there are no Braille signs to tell blind people where to go or Braille on the lift buttons. There was also a piano playing, but if you were very near it, it drowned out the only PA announcement that was the usual “See it, say it, sorted,” police announcements. I had a first class ticket and didn’t realise there was a First Class lounge until someone on the train, after I’d got on the next train to Ashford, told me about it; and I’m not blind! What’s the point of having a First Class ticket if us disabled people can’t use them, because the Rail Assist people assume that we can’t afford a first class ticket?
Disabled Access In and Around
Poor
Lifts, but no Braille signs. There was a sign which said “No Dogs In This Station”. So, what about guide dogs?
Parking & Transport
Average
No disabled parking at London St Pancras Station.
Accessible Toilets
Bad
Appalling: broken seat, red cord only reaching part way to the ground and no flush arm visible.
Staff
Poor
The Rail Assist guys seemed to be oblivious to the conditions I had and showed human behaviours Luke I was ‘putting it on’.
Additional Information
Terrible buzzing noise, not somewhere where you could take autistic people.
