After what happened today I’m seriously considering starting a campaign to make all the lifts on the London transport network strictly for wheelchair users only, or at least confined to people who strictly need them. It had started out as a pretty normal day: after seeing it flagged up on the breakfast news, I thought I would go up to Central London to check out the Qatari state visit. I took the Jubilee Line up there, getting off at green park. Predictably, however, I got there too late for all the festivities, so there was nothing left for me to do but head back.

Just to make things a little more interesting, I thought I would trundle to Westminster, take the Jubilee Line to Bond Street and from there get the Elizabeth Line to Woolwich. For some reason it impresses me that you can now transfer between the Jubilee and Elizabeth Lines at Bond Street without leaving the station.

It was there, though, that the problems started. As any Londoner probably knows, Bond Street is quite a complex station, with its labyrinth of tunnels, escalators and lifts. To be honest I find it rather fascinating how the engineers managed to merge the old and new parts of the station. This afternoon, however, when I attempted to use one of the older lifts, I found it was going very slowly indeed. Just as I was starting to think that I should have just gone straight home, it finally arrived, and I wheeled into it along with five or six perfectly able bodied people. Everything seemed to be fine, until we got to the required floor, and the lifts doors wouldn’t open. No matter how many times the button was pushed, the doors refused to open.

People gradually began to panic. After a few minutes one guy pressed the emergency button and spoke to the operator. She assured us that a maintenance guy was on his way, but nonetheless I was there stuck in a lift, getting more and more furious with the lazy p’tahks who surrounded me. If such lifts were only used by those of us who need them, they would probably all work perfectly well.

Obviously things were eventually resolved, and after about quarter of an hour the lift began working again. Truth be told things were never in much doubt; but the fact remains that the lifts on the TfL network are getting older and older, and the more they are used by people who are perfectly able to use stairs or escalators, the more likely they are to break down. Obviously there will need to be some exceptions, such as mums pushing prams, but if you ask me all lifts should be strictly reserved for those of us with no alternative. As with my grievance concerning prams occupying the wheelchair space on busses, it just seems so arrogant and self-centred. It is now clearly becoming so problematic that I feel I have to do something about it.