Southampton Centre for Independent Living

It seems like there’s nothing like the subject of Blue Badges to get people energised with many local papers regularly filling their pages with stories of either people abusing the Blue Badge scheme or Blue Badge holders being given parking tickets unfairly.

The Disabled Person’s Parking Badge Scheme (”the Blue Badge Scheme”) was introduced in 1971 to provide a national arrangement of on-street parking concessions for disabled people, allowing them to access goods and services more easily.  There are currently 2.3 million Blue Badge holders in the UK.

The Department of Transport have now decided to consult on changes to the Blue Badge scheme. The main changes being proposed relate to the eligibility criteria for the Scheme together with better ways of administering and enforcing the Scheme in order to cut down on levels of abuse. This may require altering the design of the badge to make it harder to forge.

A national database of Blue Badge holders is also being proposed. Another proposal is that different local authorities could vary the parking concessions granted to users of Blue Badges. This already happens in Central London, however the report also points out that this may add to uncertainty amongst Blue Badge holders about where they can park and for how long.

One idea being mooted is to try to lessen the financial worth of the Blue Badge to put people off stealing them. The idea would be that Blue Badge holders would no longer receive free parking but that Disabled People would be entitled to a ‘parking payment’ as part of their Individual Budget.

The final date for responses to be received by the Department for Transport is 17 April 2008. The full consultation document is available on http://www.dft.gov.uk/consultations/open/bluebadgereformstrategy

SCIL has been working hard over the past couple of months to develop its presence on the Internet. Although we are very aware that some people do not have regular access to Internet, we feel that it is important that SCIL continues to promote itself as a leading voice within the Independent Living movement and the website is one way that we can do that. 

 It is also important that the SCIL website encourages interactivity with its readers and therefore we have recently launched 2 new developments:

SCIL Chat Room

SCIL has now its very own chat room for any issues relating to Independent Living, Direct Payments, Self Directed Support etc. Anyone can participate no matter where you live. We hope to host various events on there such as an online Direct Payments Peer Support Group. Other ideas would be welcome.

Also we might be able to use it to network over various campaign issues on a national basis. We will be shortly paying £15 per month for the chat room so it would be good to see if we can find some good uses for it. Anyway, you can try it out by clicking here 

SCIL Message Board / Forum

SCIL has also launched its own message board. This means that you don’t necessarily have to be online at the same time as other people. You can post your thoughts / comments / queries on the board and other users can reply at their leisure.

You can access the message boards by clicking here.

At the moment, we have a board for General Chat and News, Direct Payments, Campaigning and Travel and Transport. Other suggestions would be welcomed. 

With all these developments, we are learning as we go along so please do let us know if you experience problems or need assistance. You can contact Robert on 023 8020 2639 or email Robert@southamptoncil.co.uk 

With Christmas finally out of way, many people’s thoughts turn to where to take their next holiday. Jackie Whitehead, who works for SCIL, recounts her experience cruising round the ‘Med’ with her parents who both use wheelchairs.

 We arrived at the designated dock gate to find our ship had been “moved down a bit”. Not a big deal until you realise we were at Gate 30 and had to go to Gate 8 at the other end of Southampton, and that there were five adults, (we had a driver) two wheelchairs and three enormous suitcases all in one car! 

When we finally found the right ship we were told people in wheelchairs and buggies, along with their helpers, were to be boarded first. Looking at the huge queues of waiting passengers it sounded too good to be true, it was! We and a couple of dozen others found ourselves directed to an area on our own where we left to fight it out for a place in a queue for a boarding pass.

Having done battle with a particularly determined lady in a motorised buggy we won and were directed to a ‘special’ boarding gate. Later on we discovered that most of the passengers were welcomed on board with fanfares, photos and friendliness, my mum was met with “hang on love, we’ll get you on board in a minute”. After ten minutes of sitting on a draughty Southampton dock my mum and dad were hauled up a lonely gang plank by a couple of workers wearing fluorescent yellow coats. By this time I was cross and my mother was giggling, not with hysteria but with genuine amusement.

The real fun began the minute we boarded the ship but I don’t mean deck quoits and salsa lessons. Eagerly I forged ahead of my husband and father pushing my mother confidently along a corridor to our ‘stateroom’ (cabin to you and me). My confidence was a tad previous because I had not counted on, nor noticed, a raised divider looming out of the carpeting. It is worth mentioning here that these occurred at regular intervals through out the ship and were a continuous hazard for wheelchairs.For us at that moment it was a bit like hitting an iceberg and my mother, destined to sink, shot up and almost out of her chair. She was, however, saved when I grabbed her with one hand and shoved the wheelchair under her with the other, effectively scooping her up before a titanic disaster struck.

All of this, along with a miniscule ‘stateroom’ which meant we had to leave both of them outside in the corridor, the wheelchairs not my parents, overly narrow doors and some other minor hiccups, actually did very little to spoil what turned out to be a wonderful holiday.

However, please Mr. Cruise Ship Director when you build your next floating hotel spare a thought for my mum and dad and make sure they can cruise with all the dignity and freedom they deserve. 

I last visited Paris in 1992 and did not find it the easiest city to get around in using a wheelchair. It was therefore with some trepidation that I decided to have a short break in Paris. Why did I choose Paris - well I was mightily impressed by the Eurostar when I used it to travel to Strasbourg via Paris last year. The 2 wheelchair spaces on each Eurostar train are located in First Class and Eurostar gives the wheelchair user and their companion a substantial discount on the train ticket. You are also treated to a 3 course meal with wine and champagne. Now that can’t be bad.

The Eurostar arrives at the Gare Du Nord which is about a mile from the centre of Paris, however there are some fairly regular accessible buses that pass the Gare Du Nord and take you into the City Centre.

We stayed at the Novotel Paris Les Halles which is very near the Louvre, Notre Dame Cathedral. and the Georges Pompidou Centre. It is not a cheap hotel however the rooms were spacious and the bathroom had plenty of room for a wheelchair user. The hotel bar was on a raised platform up 3-4 steps with no ramp, but with at least six bars / cafes and restaurants just outside the main entrance, it wasn’t an issue.

Most pavements had dropped kerbs and tactile paving, however most traffic crossings did not have an audible signal when the crossing light was green, so people with visual impairments may require more guiding than they would in the UK.

At least 50% of shops and restaurants had at least 1 step at their entrance, even some of the major stores like GAP and McDonalds. Most bars / cafes had outside seating areas so if you are a wheelchair user, I would not recommend Paris in the middle of winter. 

It was also a little discouraging to note that virtually every ‘obviously’ Disabled Person I saw was either American or English. This accounts for why Disabled Access only seem to have been actively considered in the tourist areas.

The Louvre is an excellent case in point. It is completely accessible, they publish a comprehensive access guide in French and English. They also provide audio guides and have a tactile gallery for people with visual impairments.  The variety of exhibits there was bewildering and if you are a fan of art, sculpture, history or the ‘Da Vinci Code’, it is a must-see.

Of course, the number one attraction in Paris has got to be the Eiffel Tower. Wheelchair users can only go to the second floor but the views are still spectacular.

Compared to 1992, access in Paris is a lot easier but it still lags behind other major cities in the UK, Europe and the USA. If you enjoy the pavement cafe culture, people watching,  magnificient architecture then you’ll love Paris

If you are considering visiting Paris, I would recommend the Access in Paris website. It has lots of useful information and although the new edition of their guidebook is not out till 2007, if you contact them with specific information, they will be happy to oblige. I must declare an interest as I was involved with the Access Project for about 15 years and was one of their surveyors for the London, Paris and Israel guidebooks. The strength of the guidebooks was that we tried to simply describe the barriers at each location and let Disabled People themselves decide what they could or couldn’t manage.

Paris may not be the most accessible city in the world but if you’re not keen on flying but still want to sample some European culture then give Paris a try.