What exactly is the future for better access at Chinley station?

In 2019, the then Undersecretary of State responsible for accessibility of the railway, Nusrat Ghani MP, wrote to our CBTG group as follows:-

" Chinley was put forward but was not successful. This was largely because the station had the lowest footfall of all nominated stations in the Norrth West region  See below !

The 2019 criteria were set out (you can read the original announcement here ) as:

"[staions] have been selected following nominations from the rail industry, which engaged with local authorities and other stakeholders. We then assessed them against annual footfall, weighted by the incidence of disability in the area, and also took account of local factors such as nearby hospitals and the availability of third party funding. Due consideration was also given to the preferences of the train operating companies and, finally, a number were chosen to ensure a fair geographical spread across the country.

In 2026 the criteria cited (read the announcement here) were:-

• Busy stations, where upgrades would benefit significant numbers of passengers.
• Ensuring a good spread of projects across Wales, Scotland and different parts of England.
• Making use of pre-existing technical development work.
• A third-party funding contribution.

On 15th January 2026 Rail Minister Lord Hendy wrote to the MP for HIgh Peak as follows:-

"I recognise that Chinley Station would meet the first two criteria (busy station, good spread across the country). Unfortunately, little or no prior technical development work exists for the proposed accessibility upgrades at Chinley Station (??*) . The absence of third-party funding contributions to the project was the crucial factor in the decision for it to not progress at this time*.

??*  there have been two detailed studies, in 2018 and 2021

* so now Chinley loses out for a different reason 

In a previous post we noted that Chinley's footfall was now almost exactly what it was pre-pandemic in 2019