Overview

Useful interchange station. Fairly user friendly considering its age but certainly not with accessibility designed in.

Transport & Parking

Used the bus to access from Charing Cross hospital. Certainly easier and quicker to get to than Waterloo from there and buses less crowded too. Usual problems with London bus disabled access but no specific problems.

Access

First thing to note is it's on a fairly steep hill so if you're not using a powerchair it's probably going to be hard work. It's also very busy with people who are focussed on themselves and not paying too much attention to anyone or anything else. The surfaces are fairly uneven. However there is access. There are lifts, which we have never found to be out of use. If you enter through the shopping centre at the platform 1 end you have to go right to the other end to get to platform level and then back again (I think this may not be true for 1or 2 of the earlier platforms) which is a very long detour and takes a long time even at a fairly fast walking pace. You find that different destinations have different platforms so that you don't really need to look up which platform your train will go from just the destnation platform.

Toilets

There is only one accessible toilet, in fact I think it is the only public toilet on the station. It was just about usable with a large powerchair with a user able to manouevre himself into position. It was clean but in one of those old cubicles that somehow never feel completely clean. Better than nothing but really such a busy station should have much better facilities for all - the toilet is often used by parents with children who have nowhere else to go.

Staff

We've had a very different experience to the last reviewer finding the staff to be helpful but providing only the help that's needed/wanted rather than imposing themselves when they weren't needed. They are essentially Londoners so don't show friendliness to strangers but we lived in London for 30 years so that is what we'd expect. The first time we went there they were keen to help as much as we needed but once we made it clear we only needed help with ramps and automatic gates and were capable of requesting ramp assistance once we got to the platform they were happy just to let us get on with it. The only problems we've had were to do with lack of knowledge by extra staff taken on for busy periods not knowing that the last couple of carriages including one with wheelchair spaces don't fit on the platform so we've had to walk most of the length of the train at the last minute to reach the other wheelchair spaces. We've never had any problems here with staff not meeting the train with ramps, which can't be said for Waterloo or Paddington which would be our alternatives.

Anything else you wish to tell us?

Travelling from Clapham Junction is more convenient than other alternatives and the access is adequate for our needs. There is plenty of scope for improvement but the biggest problem from our point of view is that there is a big gap in the service during the rush hour because trains on our line don't stop at Clapham Junction during the rush hour.