AN elderly Poole woman was left shaken when she was trapped on her mobility scooter between the barriers of the High Street rail crossing.

Gretta Shearing, 81, from Denmark Road called the crossing, "a disaster waiting to happen" after being left stranded on the line, thinking a train was approaching.

She was with husband Sid and says she was a quarter of the way across when the alarm sounded and the barriers descended.

"I couldn't go back. I had to go forwards," she said. "I got to the other side and the barrier didn't go up again. My husband was walking beside me and a man in front realised what happened."

Between them they manhandled the barrier until she was able to creep underneath and escape.

"When it didn't go up again I thought 'What am I going to do?' I was in the middle of the railway crossing on the scooter. I was so shocked at the time."

She added: "Normally if someone is on the line it goes up and back down again but it didn't."

Mrs Shearing said she now tried to avoid going through the level crossing but had to when she wanted to shop at Sainsbury's store at Pitwines.

"For a busy town like Poole it's ridiculous," she said, and backed calls by town centre Poole People councillor Mark Howell, who last summer called for a new bridge over the railway, with access for disabled people.

Cllr Howell is now calling for Network Rail and Borough of Poole to hold talks and come up with a "strategic plan" for the area, which could mean building a development over the line for access to the shops and Lighthouse.

"I think it's not acceptable to just build a pedestrian bridge in the normal sense of a pedestrian bridge. We have got to make it part of a wider development so it passes retail areas."

A spokesman for Network Rail said: “We apologise for the position that Mrs Shearing was put in, but we want to reassure her that the signaller knew that the level crossing was not clear.

"Whilst we sympathise that the experience must have been stressful, the approaching train had not been cleared to pass through the level crossing and the correct procedures were followed.

“Network Rail has run a number of campaigns to raise awareness of the dangers of level crossings and over the next four years we are committed to spending £100 million on improving safety.”