This week Cllr Grace Baynham, Cllr Tom Morrison and Dr Pete West sent a letter to Transport For Greater Manchester, Network Rail and Northern Rail calling for step free access at Woodsmoor station in the Stepping Hill ward.

"Woodsmoor Train Station serves the Borough’s only major NHS Hospital.  Step free access will help local residents, hospital patients and staff access the already well used train station. Step free access at this station is something that many interested parties, including the Hospital, the Station Friends Group, residents, the local Liberal Democrat Councillors have been calling for, for many years." 

Making the station more accessible for all not only aids those with disabilities in seeking and receiving treatment at Stepping Hill Hospital, but local residents who have to deal with the knock on effects of additional traffic and parking in their residential areas. 

"The A6/Buxton Road is one of the most well used roads in Greater Manchester, it is frequently congested and the air pollution is often high.  Encouraging more people to use the train and having fewer people waiting at the bus stops on a polluted road would have environmental and health benefits for the area

Woodsmoor Station has a very active Friends Group who have made many improvements to the station over the years. I am aware they support the idea of step free access and would like to be involved in taking this forward.

The Station itself has suffered from under investment in its infrastructure over the years and step free access would be a move in the right direction.

In summary, step free access would bring benefits to the whole of the community in Woodsmoor.  It would also make the hospital and schools more accessible.  Most importantly, it would open up the possibility of train travel to people who have previously been unable to access it due to reduced mobility."

The team has also called for similar provisions to be made at Davenport station.

You can read the letter from the Lib Dem team in full here.

Tom Morrison called on Stockport Council to end its contracts and cut all ties with Russian state-owned energy firm Gazprom in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine.

The council currently holds a contract with the firm to provide gas, but the Liberal Democrats do not wish to see local taxpayer's money going to the Russian state and inadvertently funding its illegal war of aggression. In the last week several other councils and companies have announced the cancellation of their own contracts with Gazprom.

“What we have seen with this crisis is not just councils, but the NHS and other public sector bodies, are in these contracts with companies that are related to unsavoury foreign states,” said Councillor Morrison.

“I have requested the council review all the business contracts and investment relationships to make sure we are not related to any country that does not believe in our democratic way of life or has an appalling human rights record. We cannot be funding Putin or the Chinese state, I think this gives us an opportunity to do that. Councils, councillors, and MPs have taken our eye off the ball on this. It is awful that it has this invasion of Ukraine for everyone to realise we cannot do this. We cannot allow ourselves to be in this position in 10 years’ time."

"It is time we had a fit and proper system for determining whether a company or firm was acceptable to be receiving public contracts, or whether we were giving money to those with wildly different values to our own and propagating suffering across the world." he ended. 

Lib Dems across Stockport borough are choosing to mark International Women’s Day on 8^th March, and have pledged to ‘break the bias’.

Cllr Wendy Meikle, Deputy Leader of the Lib Dems at Stockport Town Hall, said: “As Liberal Democrats we confirm our support for International Women’s Day, celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women and a call to action for accelerating women’s equality. 

“This year’s theme, to ‘break the bias’, aims to address both deliberate and unconscious bias that make it difficult for women to move ahead and calls for action to level the playing field across society.”

• Liberal Democrats call for fare freeze as cost of living crisis worsens
• Annual season ticket for Cheadle commuters forecasted to reach £1,283.09 for the first time
• London travelcards for tube and bus services set to be scrapped for Greater Manchester passengers

At Thursday evening's council budget session, Stockport Lib Dems achieved a huge win for struggling families during the cost of living crisis. The Labour administration and other parties backed the Lib Dem amendment to use financial reserves to provide a rebate for Labour's proposed council tax increase for households in bands A-D.

The Liberal Democrats have warned that the scrapping of Covid lateral flow tests will slap Stockport Borough with a £7,381,601 “tax on caring,” with as many as 13,817 residents facing costs of over £500 a year to take regular tests and visit vulnerable relatives.

Despite the easing of Covid restrictions, the latest figures show that every week an estimated 13,817 people in Stockport  take regular Covid tests, with 24,475 tests being taken in an average week. This includes people who take tests to protect their elderly relatives and friends, or vulnerable workers who work in people-facing industries such as hospitality and are concerned about their health. 

The Liberal Democrats have accused the Government of forgetting victims of fraud in Greater Manchester after senior Conservative Ministers overlooked fraud and computer misuse offences when making false claims on falling crime.

Cheadle Liberal Democrats have also called on the local Conservative MP, Mary Robinson, to apologise to the thousands of people in the area who fell victim to fraud last year.

The latest stats from NHS England, published in January, reveal that 37,690 patients in Stockport are waiting to start treatment. 

The statistics show that some 17,456 patients have been left waiting over 18 weeks after their referral to treatment, while 3,803 have been waiting over a whole year. 

Boris Johnson’s promise to provide 85% of homes and businesses in Cheadle with affordable high-speed broadband by 2025 is set to be broken, local Liberal Democrats can reveal.

Analysis of House of Commons Library data by the party has found that just 65% of premises in Cheadle had gigabit broadband availability in 2021. 

It comes as households and business owners in Cheadle brace themselves for the cost of broadband to skyrocket in April. Several broadband providers have announced their prices will go up by 9.3%, in line with CPI inflation of 5.4% in December - the biggest rise in almost thirty years. 

North West ambulance service average response times for the most serious incidents, e.g. cardiac arrest, have increased to 9 minutes and 5 seconds in December compared to November, new Ambulance Service Statistics have revealed.