CAMPAIGNERS are celebrating the commitment that a new rail operator will have to install lifts at Pokesdown station.

The station is the “gateway to Bournemouth” for many visitors, including those coming to watch the town’s Premier League football team.

But passengers with disabilities, pushchairs or heavy luggage have to climb more than 40 steep steps to get between platforms.

The requirement for new lifts was laid down by the Department of Transport in the new south western rail franchise, which was won last week by First MTR South Western Trains.

Boscombe East councillor Andy Jones said the area’s Station Action Group had been campaigning on the issue for more than five years, with support from Bournemouth East MP Tobias Ellwood.

He said: “It’s something we’ve campaigning for and our MP has been involved, trying to move that forward and put pressure on the Department for Transport to get a situation resolved which is far from acceptable.”

The new franchisee will be required to install the lifts by the end of 2019.

Cllr Jones said: “We’ll be working with them to try and get the lifts as soon as possible.”

He called for other improvements to be made to the station, which is many people’s first experience of the town and the nearest stop to AFC Bournemouth’s Vitality Stadium. He said the station was the “gateway” to Bournemouth East.

“It’s a pretty depressing place, I think it’s fair to say, and not a great advert for Bournemouth,” he said.

“If that’s your first visit to Bournemouth, you’re probably thinking ‘My goodness, it needs to improve’. Hopefully we’ll work with First Group and MTR to at least give it a lick of paint in the first place but make it better.”

South West Trains last week lost the franchise it had held since 1996 to run the region’s trains. It was beaten by a consortium consisting of the rail operator First Group and the Chinese-owned MTR, which runs Hong Kong’s metro.

The new franchise also promises more peak time services to London. Nine minutes will be shaved off journeys between Bournemouth and the capital, and 14 minutes from a journey to Weymouth.