DISABILITY campaigners are questioning whether Hillingdon Council has missed a "golden opportunity" to get step-free access for South Ruislip tube station.

The borough’s planning committee last week gave permission for a £100m cinema, supermarket and housing complex on the former Arla Dairies site in Victoria Road.

The council is understood to have obtained around £2.7m in Section 106 money and Community Infrastructure Levy from the developer, but most of it is earmarked for road improvements.

Conrad Tokarczyk, a Hillingdon resident, said it had been an ideal opportunity to obtain money from the developer to pay for a lift or ramp at the station for use by disabled people and others with mobility issues.

Mr Tokarczyk, who has been campaigning for step-free access to stations in the borough, has the support of Labour's parliamentary candidate for Uxbridge and South Ruislip, Chris Summers.

Mr Summers said: "Disabled people also pay taxes and travel costs so why are they being treated like second-class citizens here?"

Mr Tokarczyk said he understood Hillingdon Council officers and their counterparts from TfL were meeting to discuss match-funding opportunities.

He said: "It would be terrible to waste such a golden opportunity to provide step-free access at South Ruislip station because this sort of development doesn't happen every day."

Mr Summers pointed out that Greenford station, two stops down the Central Line, would be getting step-free access early next year after Ealing Council persuaded TfL to come up with a £2.2m incline lift, the first of its kind on the Underground.

He said: "While I am delighted 536 new jobs will be created, I am concerned that not enough has been done to encourage people to travel to and from the site by public transport.”