Four thousand railway stations in the UK are still without disabled access but Chippenham will soon no longer be one of them.

The Community Access to Rail Travel (CART) group has fought long and hard to improve accessibility at the station and now, nearly a decade after forming, it is thrilled to see work get under way.

Members stayed up until 1am to see cranes demolish the old metal footbridge at the end of last month.

CART founder Maureen Lloyd, 81, said: “I’m glad to see the horrible monstrosity gone. Nobody can stop it now. It was brilliant.”

Fellow member Sylvia Clegg, 74, said: “I’m absolutely elated. I use a walking stick and getting up and down those steps is a nightmare.”

Network Rail said the new bridge, that will look like sandy Cotswold stone, should be finished in May.

Two lift shafts will then be installed on both sides of the station. The work will be carried out at night and the lifts should be ready by August.

Mrs Lloyd said: “I was campaigning way back in 1990.

“I met with Network Rail and went to every council meeting where it was mentioned. Three years back we really stepped up the campaign.”

Mrs Clegg added: “Maureen made sure Chippenham was part of the Access for All programme; she went to the Labour conference in Blackpool and stood up and had her say.”

At the moment the only way someone using a wheelchair can get on a train at Chippenham is by phoning and asking to cross the tracks via the ‘barrow crossing’, timed to avoid passing trains.

Peter Rignall, regional retail manager for Network Rail, said: “It is a challenge at times. On occasions people have to wait.”

Mrs Clegg added: “For years I cared for a lady in a wheelchair. We had to get to the station an hour before the train was due and wait until someone was available. If you got back after 8pm you had to carry on to Bath and get a taxi back again.”

Baroness Susan Kramer, Minister of State for Transport, was shown the soon to be redundant barrow crossing when she visited Chippenham Station last Thursday.

She said: “It’s so Victorian. Back in 1850 or so you probably would have been taken over in a wheelbarrow.

“We understand that people with disabilities are an important part of the population, they’re not on the fringes, not an add-on.”

Across the country, 142 stations have been made step-free under the Access for All programme and money has been pledged to improve another 68.

Chippenham MP Duncan Hames, who has pushed the accessibility issue in Parliament, said: “People waiting for this have been amazingly patient. Now it has begun and there’s no going back.”

Network Rail project manager Scott Pillinger said the work had taken so long to get started because there are only 10 to 15 firms in the region who can install the specialist lifts.

A Network Rail spokesman added: “The completion date has moved as a result of a number of technical issues, most recently around how we safely undertake construction work on the island platform, whilst minimising disruption to the public by ensuring that trains continue to run and passengers can continue to use the station.”