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Nexus has submitted plans to improve access to Monkseaton Metro station. The £250,000 plans would see a new landscaped footpath and adjacent staircase replacing the existing covered ramp to the northbound platform. More than one million passengers use Monkseaton Metro every year. The new path will be much easier for people with wheelchairs and baby buggies to use, and link with the existing footpath on Front Street. Ken Mackay, Director of Rail and Infrastructure for Nexus, said: “We want to improve access to Monkseaton Metro for all passengers. “The new path and adjacent staircase will provide a much more pleasant and easy approach to the northbound platform than the existing covered ramp.” “Wheelchair users and people with mobility problems find it impossible to use the current ramp so our plans will open up Monkseaton Metro to them.” Nexus, which owns, manages and is modernising the Tyne and Wear Metro, is seeking planning permission from North Tyneside Council. Disabled groups have complained the existing covered ramp, built during the First World War, is impossible for wheelchair users to climb at a gradient of one in eight. The railway industry standard for such ramps is a gradient of one in 20, with resting points, to meet requirements in the Disability Discrimination Act. Passengers have also complained the ramp is dark, enclosed and unpleasant to use. Work on the £250,000 project is expected to begin next year, subject to planning permission being granted.
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