| "My name's Ian Ford, I've lived in Levenshulme for about 25 years. I've come today to see what they've done in Handforth in terms of improving the station and how they've gone about it. Both the environment and the practical facilities which are more important to me as somebody who uses the train on a regular basis. 
There's cover for the stairs, but not the passengers. |
If you're a wheelchair user you'd have no chance of getting a train anywhere from Levenshulme station - there's no ramps, there's no lifts. It's got two platforms - which now have numbers on to tell you which one's which - which is something that's been missing for a very long time - which is very unhelpful when there are announcements. It's actually not a bad station. It's structurally sound. It has a decent booking office which is staffed a lot of the time. "It's a bit tatty but it does offer a wonderful service really."
Ian Ford talking about Levenshulme station |
Little things are wrong - people don't know it's there because the signpost to it is dreadful. It's not far from the A6 but you can go straight up the A6 and not know that you can catch a train from there. There's nowhere to leave a bike. There's no where to wait where you can sit down out of the rain on the platform going towards Manchester. If it's been raining you can sit on a wet metal seat and it if it is raining you can sort of cower over the stairwell and block people trying to get in up the stairs. They've just put a roof back on the waiting room on the other platform which seats all of about 4 people -so that's an improvement." | 
Voices from Levenshulme