Yorkshire and Lincolnshire: Badge Blues

Parking is more than an irritation for people with disabilities

Finding a place to park your car is one of the most stressful parts of motoring. For many it can be more than an irritation.

The blue badge scheme is supposed to reserve spaces for drivers with disabilities. But how well is it working in practice? The Politics Show investigates.

Personal experience

Malcolm Robinson, from Haworth in West Yorkshire, has had four heart attacks and takes 100 pills each week to keep him alive.

His doctors say he is safe to drive, but he gets breathless if he has to walk any distance.

Malcolm used to have an orange badge to allow him to park in spaces reserved for people with disabilities, but two years ago the system changed. Like many other people, he lost out.

New scheme

The orange badges were replaced with blue ones under a European scheme. Everyone who held an orange badge had to re-apply to their local council.

When Malcolm applied to Bradford Council, they refused to issue a badge. Department of Transport guidelines to councils state that anyone who receives Disability Living Allowance (DLA) at the highest rate is automatically entitled to a blue badge.

Bradford, have decided to apply the rules strictly and limit badges to people getting the highest rate of DLA. Malcolm is not in that group.

This means that Malcolm struggles when parking his car. He says, "I don't look disabled, but if you could cut a line down my chest and open that up and see my heart and my arteries you would see a totally different picture altogether."

Abuse

MP Ann Cryer feels the system needs sorting out

Bradford Council says the scheme needs to be strict to prevent it being abused by people who aren't actually disabled.

But Malcolm Robinson's local MP, Ann Cryer, says people like him are losing out unfairly and the whole system needs sorting out.

Mrs Cryer says, "Many of the people who have talked to me about the problem, are clearly having great difficulty walking, so I don't know where these people who are interviewing them are looking."

What do you think of the current blue badge scheme? Let The Politics show know by leaving your comments below.

Also on the show

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The Politics Show investigates the landfill tax - money which firms have to pay when material is dumped in the ground.

Local MP Barry Sheerman is joining companies campaigning against the Government's plans to change this tax.

The Politics Show

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