{"id":7447,"date":"2024-01-31T18:37:03","date_gmt":"2024-01-31T08:37:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=7447"},"modified":"2024-01-31T18:37:03","modified_gmt":"2024-01-31T08:37:03","slug":"northern-appoints-new-chair-for-independent-accessibility-group","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=7447","title":{"rendered":"Northern appoints new chair for independent accessibility group"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"story__summary\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.northernrailway.co.uk\/\">Northern<\/a> has appointed an accessibility campaigner to chair its independent user group which focuses on empowering people to use public transport \u2013 no matter their circumstances.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"story__body\">\n<p>New chair Mark Cutter, from Lancaster, has been a member of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.northernrailway.co.uk\/\">Northern\u2019s<\/a> Accessibility User Group (NAUG) since its inception.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>NAUG is a pan disability user group whose membership represents a very wide range of disabilities on a personal basis and from the perspective of disability groups and organisations reflecting the communities served by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.northernrailway.co.uk\/\">Northern<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Matt Wilson, accessibility manager at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.northernrailway.co.uk\/\">Northern<\/a>, said: \u201cMark\u2019s expertise in accessibility as well as his well-established relationships with the NAUG members and our own accessibility team will ensure his time as chair is productive and progressive, and we are looking forward to Mark moving into his new role at the end of the month.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0\u201cSince launching three years ago NAUG has played a vital role in supporting <a href=\"https:\/\/www.northernrailway.co.uk\/\">Northern\u2019s<\/a> accessibility strategy and has offered a lived-experience-of-disability perspective to many of our projects.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Mark has worked as an accessibility advisor for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.avantiwestcoast.co.uk\/\">Avanti West Coast<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tpexpress.co.uk\/\">TransPennine Trains<\/a>. He was also recently appointed as chair of the rail accessibility for the north multi-operator and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.networkrail.co.uk\/\">Network Rail<\/a> joint panel.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>He said: \u201cI am really excited to be joining <a href=\"https:\/\/www.northernrailway.co.uk\/\">Northern<\/a> in this role. Embedding lived experience expertise in the rail industry will improve the travel experience for all passengers.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have lived experience of physical disability, mental ill-health and neurodiversity and we will take a pan-disability approach to accessibility and inclusion.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHowever, I believe accessible travel is about much more than disability. As a critical friend, I will work collaboratively to challenge <a href=\"https:\/\/www.northernrailway.co.uk\/\">Northern<\/a>, and the wider industry, to think differently about the way we travel.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<div class=\"box\">\n<p><strong>More Like This\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<h3><a href=\"https:\/\/www.globalrailwayreview.com\/news\/157863\/crosscountry-hopkinson\/\">CrossCountry appoints Steve Hopkinson as Service Delivery Director<\/a><\/h3>\n<h3><a href=\"https:\/\/www.globalrailwayreview.com\/news\/155408\/swr-northern-strike\/\">SWR and Northern rail services affected by ASLEF strike<\/a><\/h3>\n<h3><a href=\"https:\/\/www.globalrailwayreview.com\/news\/155390\/pandrol-rosenqvist\/\">Pandrol and Rosenqvist forge a new alliance<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Northern has appointed an accessibility campaigner to chair its independent user group which focuses on empowering people to use public transport \u2013 no matter their [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":7448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,47,488],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-opinion","category-rail-news","category-railway-stations"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7447\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}