why are we having to pay for the bluebadge

Morglin

kurgon wrote: »

You have to pay in all council car-parks and all hospital sites here. Some allow you an extra hour if you have a badge but they also start off at £3 for 2 hours!

My view is that hospitals should be forbidden from charging BB holders to park.:mad:

Those with health problems generally have to use hospitals more than Mr Healthy, they are often on low incomes, and these charges can rack up, if you are in there for hours.

If our hospital started charging, we would just park on the double yellow lines outside, which is perfectly legal.

Lin

dave030445

Morglin wrote: »

My view is that hospitals should be forbidden from charging BB holders to park.:mad:

Those with health problems generally have to use hospitals more than Mr Healthy, they are often on low incomes, and these charges can rack up, if you are in there for hours.

If our hospital started charging, we would just park on the double yellow lines outside, which is perfectly legal.

Lin

Outside our hospital there is a loading restrictions so can't park on double yellow lines

Richie-from-the-Boro

Its always seemed to me to be an oxymoron that the reason cited by hospital trusts for charging Blue Badge holders is the Equality Act, ie """ all people are treated equally """. Disabled individuals may wish to be treated the same, where practicable, as able-bodied persons.""" but :

- disabled people often have no other choice but to drive to hospital
- they may be unable travel by foot and public transport may not be suitable or available
- hospital visits may take longer to complete for disabled people
- which could lead them to incur higher parking costs

So it will Inevitably cost someone more to park because of their disability, and that must be clearly wrong, treating somebody less favourably as a result of their disability seems to amount to a breach of the Equality Act and should be tested in a court of law / by judicial review / or by way of a civil claim for compensation. The EA does recognise that disabled people's needs may be different from those of non-disabled people and specifically states public bodies must "take account of disabled people's impairments when making decisions about policies or services". I'm not convinced in this case that hospitals have 'taken account of disabled people's impairments' when setting equal parking charge rates.

Richie-from-the-Boro

Finally - 46 minutes ago - a start, but only a start - more work needed GOV Hospitals ordered to ban bullies and give the seriously ill free parking

kittykat17

Richie-from-the-Boro: Move up to Newcastle - free parking for BB holders at our hospitals! Mind you, you have to get there at least an hour before your appointment to be able to find a space!


Some of the car parks in Newcastle city centre are privately owned/run and charge for BB parking. The council run ones don't charge although they don't have many spaces. A lot of on-streeet parking for disabled drivers tho. So we definitely get our monies worth up here.


I think the £10 charge is fair and well worth it. Until this year we also had to pay £25 for a doctor's letter to go with our application / renewal so I am quite happy with the reduction to just £10!

lemontart

costs - cost of tamper proof card, cost of staff time processing, cost of person taking post from post room to that dept cost of building folk sit in, cost of postage back to us. ....................Cuts in funding from govt etc etc cuts in income from many areas with increased red tape all the while. Mine cost me £10 which was a struggle at the time but I have found it invaluable allowing me access to areas I would not before been able to as need room to get motor scooter out or wheel chair. Saving me a fortune on parking in free or reduced rates. Many disabled spaces are well placed and mean shorter walks - great at coucil offices etc as means if only very short walks 100meters there and back I can at times get away with stick or crutch. makes life a lot easier.

It also serves as a "document" for some concessions for disabled folk. I also splashed out (no pun intended !) on a radar key which unlocks disabled toilets in a lot of places including Macdonalds again a good investment as I know these loos will have grab rails in, I can get chair in when needed and they are usually a damn site cleaner than the others.

Both have proved invaluable.

duchy

pauletruth wrote: »

ive renewed it twice now and its always been free now im being charged 13.50. seems a lot for a bit of card.

If it seems like too much for "a bit of card" (although actually you are charged for the production and administrative charges rather than expecting other CT payers to contribute) and you prefer to pay parking charges instead......then don't pay.

Isn't this the sort of thing DLA is supposed to cover.....costs for things to level the playing field ?

nannytone_2

we have 2 hospitals in our area.
1 charges BB holders and the other doesnt.
also ALL of the council run car parks are free for everyone.

i dont see why BB holders should park for free, surely the whole point is to be anble to park near where you need to be rather than cost?
i am a BB holder and dont object to paying and rarely use disabled bays anyway

Richie-from-the-Boro

The whole scheme is now funded exclusively by BB holders, so its general taxpayer free. My point was / is that even though the tickets are an 'invitation to pay' not a statutory fine and do not need to be paid those companies running the parking - mainly private eye - are targeting / discriminating against specific disabled and ill groups to earn bigger bonuses.

Mr Taylor, 53, said wardens are ranked on league tables according to how many tickets they have handed out per week. Emails from his bosses show wardens are incentivised with bonuses once they have penalised at least 20 drivers a day. For each of the next ten tickets they issue, they receive a £2 commission, rising to £3 once they have reached 30 or more and £4 once they have given out more than 40. For every ticket issued a day once they are passed the 50 mark, they receive a £5 bonus. Mr Taylor said the company’s top performers on lucrative sites could give out 60 tickets a day, earning themselves more than £700 a week in commission – amounting to £33,600 a year

Don’t appeal to the PPC, or anyone else, get a ring binder and carefully file each and every threat that you receive - and you will receive many. Over time they will tire of wasting their money and will stop throwing good money after bad. They have no power to force from you the name of the driver as they are not the police. They only have a 'contact' with the driver and not the registered keeper. They cannot demand that you stand on an ID parade. Its one of those where doing nothing, nothing at all will serve you well. This is not a parking fine no matter how its dressed up to look like one, they are unenforceable.

Indie_Kid

Some of us with severe disabilities have to pay. But it seems that at our local hospital, some people are exempt. But not those of us with potentially life threatening neurological diseases which require constant scans and check ups.