LTS Rail has been accused of treating disabled people like "third class citizens" over its plans for a facelift to Benfleet railway station.

Now Castle Point Council is to tackle the train company over improving access for handicapped travellers - and parents with young children - after the attack by councillors.

LTS is planning a variety of improvements to the station, including cash machines, a new shop and new doors and roofs.

However, at a meeting of Castle Point Council's town planning committee, members raised fears that the disabled and people with pushchairs were not being adequately catered for.

Labour Councillor Jane David said: "It is unacceptable to make the disabled feel like third class citizens."

Councillor Tony Hurd, Labour, said at the meeting: "I long for the day when it's law that people with disabilities are taken into account, especially in the public services."

Wheelchair user Lucy Robins, of Business Opportunities for the Physically Handicapped, said that once a wheelchair user travelling to London buys a ticket they have to leave the station, travel around the outside and up a hill before waiting for a porter to open a gate letting them onto the platform.

She said: "You have to go all the way round just to get to the platform, and once there you have to travel in the guard's van, where people store their bicycles.

"Rather than all these improvements, it would be nice if they had made the station a bit easier to use."

Director of planning Ian Burchill said he would continue to put pressure on LTS over access for the disabled, but added that much of what was done inside the station was beyond the council's control.

However, he added: "I will write to them myself and say I really think we should be trying to improve the situation."

The plans for the station - the busiest on the LTS line - were approved by the committee.

A spokesman for LTS said: "We have disabled access at the station, and have come quite a way in the past couple of years. We have ramps, disabled parking, tactile paving, cassette tapes for the blind and more.

"We will continue to make investigations as to how we can keep improving. We are already working at plans in some areas, it is getting better."

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