Tram-ban alert on mobility scooters

Oldham’s mobility-scooter users will know soon if they will be able to use Metrolink trams when they arrive next year.

For transport bosses are reviewing their policy on carrying scooters after a disabled passenger drove his off a Metrolink platform on to the track while trying to turn around at Besses o’th’Barn, near Prestwich.

Services were suspended while the man was rescued but investigators then discovered that Metrolink regulations banning the scooters were being overlooked. They also found records of 13 serious incidents on other tram networks involving mobility scooters.

Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive’s decision to enforce the bylaw banning mobility scooters on Metrolink after the incident in March this year led to furious protests, including a demand from MPs that the ban be removed immediately.

Rail regulations state that operators are not obliged to carry invalid carriages bigger than a standard wheelchair and that in some circumstances it may be unsafe to do so.

An official report on the row said mobility scooters were not regulated in terms of size or capability, and, unlike wheelchairs, did not turn on their own axis. This made manoeuvring scooters on trams and platforms extremely difficult and posed a potential risk to the scooter user and other passengers.

Greater Manchester Integrated Transport Authority chairman Councillor Ian MacDonald said: “I have been meeting with users and their seems to be a feeling that we have just introduced this bylaw.

“I was surprised by the size of some of the scooters. We have got to be consistent and obviously we can’t have one rule for new trams and another for old trams.

“It is not easy because you are accused of picking out disabled people in a negative way. But we always have to think of the safety of the disabled passengers themselves and of other passengers.”

The ban will stay in place while the review is carried out.