Consultation - Personal Independence Payment and eligibility for a Blue Badge

Coupon-mad

One of the changes being brought forward by the government’s welfare system reform is regarding the Disability Living Allowance, which in turn, will affect eligibility for a Blue Badge.

The DfT are therefore running a public consultation:

http://www.dft.gov.uk/consultations/dft-2012-30/

I know we have lots of disabled posters on here and also plenty more with disabled relatives. Tell them what you think of the proposals and also this is a chance to tell them about your ideas for improvement of the Blue Badge scheme as your reply will actually be read!

Apart from comments on their ideas, I thought of things like:

- Blue Badges should be automatically renewed if the person is still eligible. I have seen too many cases on our parking board and on pepipoo fightback forums, where a driver did not realise that their BB had expired and then got a parking ticket.

- Blue Badges should have the photo on the front, so it's face up when putting the BB on the dashboard. To reduce the ease of abuse by a family member using granny's badge.

- BB scheme should make it MUCH clearer to badge holders that the scheme simply does NOT apply on private land. No-one should just believe the signs in Supermarket car parks which say 'Blue Badge Holders only' because the scheme simply is not relevant there and to stop other long-term disabled people from using a space they need, close to the store, is a breach of the Equality Act. This has been discussed to death on the parking Board already BTW so not encouraging anyone to go down that discussion route again; the Equality Act is clear on who is covered and it doesn't involve having a blue badge, blue hat or blue car, etc. (on private land).

Anyway just thought I would encourage everyone to have a say, the deadline is 2nd October so best to send off your responses soon.





P.S. I have also posted this on the parking sub-board but thought it would reach a wider motoring audience by putting it on here too!

mikey72

That's an interesting viewpoint.

Why is the requirement for blue badges on public areas not a breach of the Equality Act?

It's always been accepted that it's reasonable to let disabled drivers park on double yellow lines, use disabled bays in council car parks, etc, and it's always been accepted that the measurement of disability has been a blue badge.

If that is a breach of the Equality Act on private land, it's just as much a breach anywhere else, and discriminates unfairly.

So, either anyone who is disabled can park without a blue badge anywhere, or it would seem to be a reasonable defence for private land that the same measure of disability was used everywhere else to control parking?

Coupon-mad

No.

Just no.

Lum

Getting a blue badge is not easy, despite what the Daily Fail would have you believe, though the OP does make one crucial mistake.

Yes, getting DLA automatically entitles you to a BB, but you can also get one by applying directly to your local council, at which point they'll give you forms to fill in, demand evidence from your GP and so on. In our case it took about a month to get the BB issued.

We went down this route because you have to have been disabled for a minimum of 3 months before you can even ask for the forms for DLA. It then takes a couple of months to actually fill in the form (3 months in our case) and a month more for a decision, so a total of 7 months from my partner becoming disabled to actually getting DLA.

In our case it wasn't quite so bad because I could do the shopping and stuff on my own, and we just didn't go out for fun stuff very much due to the parking issues, but if you become disabled and need to do your own shopping then you'll be needing those supermarket accessible parking bays right away, you can't just sit at home for a month and starve while the council twiddle their thumbs making a decision.

mikey72

Coupon-mad wrote: »

No.

Just no.

The only guidance from the Equality and Human Rights Commision website is

"The car parks in a hospital are run by a private company. Within the contract the hospital requires the company to provide a certain number of blue badge bays and specific arrangements to reduce the cost of parking for those who attend hospital regularly. The contract also requires the contractor to report on a quarterly basis in relation to the number of complaints by disabled people, the number of violations of blue badge bays it has dealt with and how quickly these have been rectified as well as providing details of the take up of the reduced rate parking."

http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/u...rement_ded.pdf

For security reasons, you cannot park outside
"terminals. Therefore, please use the nearest car park
or drop-off point. Airport car parks should have spaces
for Blue Badge holders and a help point - airports may
also provide spaces for passengers requiring special

assistance who are not Blue Badge holders."

http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/u...hts_to_fly.pdf

They appear to be very specific in their advice on who can use blue badge bays in private car parks.

Lum

Are hospitals actually private car parks, or are they state run car parks, some of which may have the management outsourced to a private firm in the same way that some councils get the likes of NCP to provide traffic wardens?

Same question applies to airports. Genuine question as I'm not actually sure.

Oh, and for the record, before we got a BB if the two of us were out together we'd still try to avoid using the accessible bays if possible, making use of drop-off points to unload the wheel chair, then I go park on my own, or parking in an end space and using the hatched area where lazy people dump their trolleys to unload. This was mainly to avoid hassle, and/or getting my car keyed, from people who don't realise that the BB scheme doesn't apply in Tesco's car park. For hospital visits again I'd be the one dropping her off.

In any case, the reason public car parks (and double yellows) are not subject to the equality act is because they are covered by different legislation, namely The Disabled Persons (Badges for Motor Vehicles) (England) Regulations 2000 (as amended) and The Local Authorities’ Traffic Orders (Exemptions for Disabled Persons) (England) Regulations 2000.

Further reading: http://www.dft.gov.uk/topics/access/blue-badge/history-and-legislation

mikey72

Lum wrote: »

Are hospitals actually private car parks, or are they state run car parks, some of which may have the management outsourced to a private firm in the same way that some councils get the likes of NCP to provide traffic wardens?

Same question applies to airports. Genuine question as I'm not actually sure.

Oh, and for the record, before we got a BB if the two of us were out together we'd still try to avoid using the accessible bays if possible, making use of drop-off points to unload the wheel chair, then I go park on my own, or parking in an end space and using the hatched area where lazy people dump their trolleys to unload. This was mainly to avoid hassle, and/or getting my car keyed, from people who don't realise that the BB scheme doesn't apply in Tesco's car park. For hospital visits again I'd be the one dropping her off.

In any case, the reason public car parks (and double yellows) are not subject to the equality act is because they are covered by different legislation, namely The Disabled Persons (Badges for Motor Vehicles) (England) Regulations 2000 (as amended) and The Local Authorities’ Traffic Orders (Exemptions for Disabled Persons) (England) Regulations 2000.

Private, the same as Tesco's.

As to the second part, it's an interesting point, as they are subject to the act, and part of the adjustment for disability is the right to park on double yellows, and (normally) free parking in public car parks in marked bays. The blue badge is the measure of disabilty that has been decided is the level at which the adjustment is required.
The EHRC appears to support that the same level, and the blue badge is fair to use in blue badge bays in the private car parks at hospitals, and airports, as the examples I got from the first two hits on their website.