Campaigning works: Tactile paving on train platforms completed across Britain
Five years after the tragic death of Cleveland Gervais, a man with sight loss who fell from a train platform that lacked tactile paving to warn him of the platform edge, the Department for Transport (DFT) has confirmed that it has completed a programme of installing tactile paving on all platforms across Great Britain.
At the time of Cleveland’s death, only around half of mainline railway stations in Britain had tactile paving on their platform edges. RNIB launched our #RailSafe campaign to tackle this, and thanks to the campaigning of thousands of people, the timeline for installation was accelerated.
The original commitment by Network Rail, the body that oversees and manages most of the railway across Great Britain, would have taken until 2029 for all platform edges at British train stations to be fitted with tactile paving, unless further funding was provided by the Government.
In 2021, 11 UK disability organisations, including RNIB, called on Network Rail, the DFT and the Treasury to accelerate the timeline for funding and installing this tactile paving.
RNIB delivered a petition signed by 15,817 people to Network Rail and the DFT, with Cleveland’s partner Sekha Hall.
The campaign’s first win came in March 2022, when the Chief Executive of Network Rail announced the planned delivery would be finished in 2025, subject to funding and formal approval from the DFT. Later that year it was confirmed that the Department had secured ring-fenced funding for the work.
By the third anniversary of Cleveland’s death, the UK Government said that Network Rail had been funded to complete installation by 2025.
The DFT recently wrote to RNIB and other campaigning organisations to announce that the work is now complete.
The Tactile Installation Programme delivered platform edge tactile at 822 stations. Six more stations still require tactile paving; these are part of other ongoing work which is expected to be completed by the end of 2025.
Cleveland’s partner, Sekha Hall, told RNIB: “It was important to me to make sure that Cleveland did not die in vain." He also wanted to encourage the general public to offer help if they see someone with a white cane on a train platform – “people shouldn’t be so worried about doing the wrong thing that they don’t do anything."
RNIB’s Be Helpful Guide has lots of tips from people with sight loss about how to appropriately offer and provide assistance.
