Disability Law

Wizzy75

Hi I completed a Disability Discrimination Project whilst doing a Humanities Foundation degree in 2012. I've been tasked by my ESA adviser to update it and send it to the Disability coordinator in our local council. This is very flattering and exciting that I've been given the opportunity to help in some way. My question is Have any new laws relating to Equality been passed since The Equality Act 2010?

Also I'd like to ask the disabled community; Do you feel that enough has been done to enable you access to shops, toilets, restaurants and services?

My project looked at the changes that have physically been done to allow everyone the ability to access the same shops and services as an able bodied person. It found that little had changed in 2012. I'm hoping its different now, I'll let you know what I find.

Thanks Zoe x

pollyanna1052

Interesting post. Thank. I`ll watch this space!

Chloe_Alumni

Thanks for sharing this with us.

newborn

Misscleo mentioned elsewhere that disability discrimination ought to be effectively enforceable in an equal way with race discrimination. 

ash5896

I honestly I don’t think a lot has changed in terms of accessibility. There are still hurdles to cross. I’ve had some bad experiences for job interviews and no adjustments made and this has included places like the NHS and council who you would think would be on top of this. 

My wheelie bin collections it took 3 months of going back and forth before the assisted service was finally sorted. I can think of plenty of other things 

newborn

Train companies were allowed twenty years to introduce accessible rolling stock . Why?  Would any of the legislators  wait twenty years to be able to travel?  After all that, they still didn't  meet the deadline. 

Access to premises was on a twenty year pre-warning, but never enforced, and even now new buildings get planning consent without access.

Natwest was used as a test case, decades ago, when the equalities people still, sometimes,  bothered to take legal cases. The bank lost, lost and lost at every stage  until on the steps of the then highest court,  where their lawyer pointed out that fighting each individual cripple at each offending bank branch would be the cheapest option. 

Most excluded potential customers wouldn't even take the  chance of fighting a bank's  lawyers, from their own pockets, therefore, for banks,  restricting themselves  to adapting that single branch, and defying the law everywhere  else, was the best economic decision.  What they really meant was,  making every branch accessible would be too costly, nobody would enforce the law, and who cares about a bunch of cripples, or the so called equality laws?.

Garza

i dont think much is changing, the law seems largely unenforceable and unlike other minorities Disabled people seem to have very little voice on a national stage or on social media where things seem to get done these days.

I agree with some of the other posters, the law is pointless if it is not being policed and enforced, alongside the governments continued persecution of disabled people factors such as this are making us more and more second class citizens and an unheard minority, in my opinion of course 

Wizzy75

Thank you for your thoughts everybody, my initial findings were that Banks were the worst offenders, I'm starting new research to see if anything has changed since my initial report in 2012, that's 8 years ago, I don't want to influence the study but I do feel that not much has changed! Sadly.

Wizzy75

How dothe changes get inforced, thats a good question and one I will be asking the disability dept in the local council.

newborn

The  horrible  example I return to is the  carphone warehouse given consent despite deliberately placing the entrance door, on a sloping site,  so  that it needed steps. Merely moving it a little further  up the  shop frontage would have made it smooth and level access from the pavement. 

The architect should be struck off, the council officers sacked, the members who passed it should be banned from public office.  The firm should be given an exemplary fine.

Who will take the necessary legal cases through court? Nobody. 

newborn

Wizzy 75 does your council have a disability department? How unusual.  Most councils appear unaware disability  exists, as far as their own activities are concerned.  They assume the n.h.s. deals with such stuff.