On Friday 26th June we found out that our Learning and Skills Council funding had been withdrawn.

The National Star College is a specialist college for young people with disabilities. Through its provision the College aims to enable students by providing learning experiences that will see learners fully equipped for adult life.

The Star Appeal was launched in 2006 with the endeavour of raising £15.4 million to drastically modernise the main site in Cheltenham. This will provide more specialist support and accommodation for its current and future students.

The LSC had pledged to fund about half of this, but we have been made aware that the project has not been shortlisted in the latest announcement following a review of funding prompted by a commitment to fund more projects than it has means to. This has come as a massive shock but we have been fortunate to have regional and national exposure and have visited Westminster to express our concerns. Please show your support for us by signing the petition by following this link.

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/NationalStar

Don’t forget to check your name is added to the list by clicking on the confirmation email that will be sent to you after you fill in the online form (this might turn up in your junk email box and will probably need to be moved to your inbox for you to be able to register) Thank you very much – It will change student’s and staff’s lives.

Let me tell you about something that’s been bugging me. Train travel. I don’t know about other train operators, but First Great western do not make it easy for wheelchair users to travel on their trains!

Whereas standard tickets can be brought over the internet or at a station, you have to phone up to book a wheelchair space and assistance. These conversations take 10-15 minutes. Some of their questions puzzle me as to what they do with the answers.

“Could you tell me how you will be arriving at Bath Spa”

“Could you tell me how you will leaving London Paddington”

This info does not filter through, and in any case is utterly pointless as when they do turn up to help they still ask where you are going. I think a simple online system where people could say what train they want to book on, check if the wheelchair space is available and book the tickets and assistance would be so much simpler for people to use.

Also I get infuriated when ramps and assistance don’t show up when you have asked numerous times, as well as during the pointless phone booking process.

At Bath Spa “Please can you phone through to London Paddington to ask them to come with the ramps”

To the ticket collector “Please can you phone through to London Paddington to ask them to come with the ramps”

Very often at the end of my journey, no one is there with the ramp! Exasperated, I ask the people cleaning the train to be told they are on their way. Sometimes I am helped off by other passengers and then I see staff arrive a few minutes later with the ramp.

I used to travel to/from Reading quite a bit, and there they seem to manage getting the ramp in the right place at the right time. Well done Reading; you get a Speak thumbs up, but it’s about time the whole palaver got sorted out.

Please tell us your experience of train travel, tell us about good and bad stations and train companies and let’s get this changed once and for all.