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An inner-city rail station is to become entirely step free for the first time in 162 years after plans for a lift were approved.

Bristol City Council has given the go-ahead for the work for platform two at Lawrence Hill Station, which will be funded by the West of England Combined Authority (Weca).

Platform one already has step-free access through the neighbouring Lidl car park, but West of England Mayor Helen Godwin said the station – which first opened in 1863 – has not been fully accessible “for too many years”.

Representatives from Bristol City Council, Network Rail and Great Western Railway (GWR) have all welcomed the announcement.

Currently platform two at Lawrence Hill is only accessible via a staircase, which Ms Godwin says has excluded many disabled and older people from train travel.

“We want all of our stations to be fully accessible, so it’s great that our plans have now been approved to install a new lift to make Lawrence Hill step-free,” she said.

It comes as part of a wider £400 million rail upgrade across the West Country, with five new stations set to be built in the coming years at Charfield, Henbury, North Filton, Pill and Portishead.

Two others have already opened since 2023 – Portway Park and Ride and Ashley Down.

Bristol City Council leader Tony Dyer said: “Moving forward with a new station lift at Lawrence Hill is part of our wider plan for extending and improving access to rail travel across our region.”

Marcus Jones, western route director at Network Rail, said: “Today’s announcement brings us another step closer to bringing better rail travel for the people of Bristol and the west of England.”

Weca is currently running a survey until 20 October asking people to record their experiences of using stations across the area.