Hi, my name is ingridJ - I have a question about social distancing and parking in town centres.

ingridJ
ingridJ Online Community Member Posts: 5 Listener
edited August 2020 in Everyday life
are are any other disabled communities finding that their council’s social distancing policy has removed 90% of the disabled parking in their town centre?

Comments

  • Cher_Alumni
    Cher_Alumni Scope alumni Posts: 5,714 Championing
    edited August 2020
    Hello @ingridJ and welcome to our online community.  It's great to have you here and you raise a really interesting topic that I think will be affecting lots of our members.  

    I'm guessing you have been impacted by your local council's social distancing policy.  That must be so frustrating not being able to get a parking spot.  Have you thought about complaining to the local authority?  

    Also for your info - I've moved your post to our Disabled People discussion board so more people are likely to spot your question.  
  • janer1967
    janer1967 Online Community Member Posts: 21,922 Championing
    Hi @ingridJ Welcome to the community, it seems this is a problem for you and others as I saw another post last week on the same subject

    I havent noticed a problem in my area but there has always been ample parking around

    I think the other post was posted in the section your post has been moved to which mat be of interest to you
  • Cher_Alumni
    Cher_Alumni Scope alumni Posts: 5,714 Championing
    @IngridJ I have found the post that @janer1967 referred to.

    Have a look at Road closures for SD to see what other members were saying about the same issue. 
  • Ross_Alumni
    Ross_Alumni Scope alumni Posts: 7,611 Championing
    Welcome to the community @ingridJ :) 
  • Chloe_Alumni
    Chloe_Alumni Scope alumni Posts: 10,506 Championing
    Hi @ingridJ and welcome to the community! I have found that disabled parking bays have been blocked as well. It's so infuriating! Has this impacted you going out? 
  • ingridJ
    ingridJ Online Community Member Posts: 5 Listener
    It certainly has! Yeovil is a town built on a steep hill. The Council, in their wisdom, have got rid of all disabled parking within walking distance of the Post Office, my Bank and the main shops. They keep saying there are 80 plus disabled parking bays still available. That may well be true, but they are too far away and are at the bottom of the hill! The spaces have gone because of social distancing. Odd that they are exactly the spaces they wanted to get rid of a year ago!
  • Tori_Scope
    Tori_Scope Scope Posts: 12,468 Championing
    How frustrating @ingridJ. Have you spoken to them about this? Do they just reply that there are 80 plus bays still available? 
  • ingridJ
    ingridJ Online Community Member Posts: 5 Listener
    Unfortunately they state everyone has to make sacrifices to achieve social distancing! The able bodied have also lost their bus stop at the top of the town. They refuse to acknowledge that in a rural area like this, the majority of public transport users are the elderly. Other areas where it is impossible to achieve 2metre distancing have been conveniently forgotten about with no measures introduced. It is ironic that the areas that really matter and where access is really required happen to be the areas we protested about losing, and have now sadly lost anyway.
  • Chloe_Alumni
    Chloe_Alumni Scope alumni Posts: 10,506 Championing
    Thank you for sharing this @ingridJ. Like you say, the spaces that are further away won't be of use if you have reduced mobility.  

    Have you made an official complaint? If not, here is the complaints procedure for local councils and hoe you can escalate things if you do not get a response you are happy with.  

    I'm sorry there have been even more barriers for you to gain some kind of normality back!

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