Your letters - January 2009

ASDA as you were
I was not surprised at Asda’s response to Allan McKinnon’s letter about disabled parking at Asda, (Disability Now December 2008, Your Views). The same has occurred at our local Asda. At first all went to plan but now we are back to “as you were”. Offenders use someone else’s badge or have no badge. Although Asda’s scheme has operated for some time I’ve never seen anyone checking vehicles or heard of anyone being fined. It’s not just Asda: the whole blue badge scheme is now in tatters.
Michael D Higham, Mansfield

I am disabled and often use the Asda store on Portrack Lane in Stockton-on-Tees. I was very pleased with Asda’s statements about illegal parking. We now have a new store with plenty of disabled bays and I usually find an available bay, though there are times when I have to wait for someone else to leave. The store has about 30 bays and even when some are vacant, about half the rest are used by drivers without the disabled badge on display. Quite often, disabled bays have vans in them and even trucks, and in most cases the drivers are not badge holders. Yet I have never seen anyone being told to move or given a ticket, as Asda said it would do.
Robert Taylor by email

Curbing enforcement
I am a blue badge holder and, as much as I object to misuse of the scheme I am unhappy about giving parking enforcement officers the power to confiscate badges. In my experience these officers are already little Hitlers and more than once I have been in dispute with the authorities over a parking fine issued because the time clock had fallen down the demist duct or I had inadvertently displayed my badges the wrong way up. While parking enforcers view their job as maximising revenue from fines I am afraid that any extra powers will be abused.
Spencer Arnott, Homer Green, Bucks

The worst and the best about shopping
Before discovering the wonder of online shopping, (Disability Now, December 2008, Basket Cases) I used to buy a lot of clothes and household goods by mail order catalogue from GUS (formerly Great Universal Stores). When I started to find its catalogue too heavy, I began using its website but more recently the site has got impossibly slow and the product descriptions aren’t as comprehensive any more. I don’t do much “real” shopping any more as I find the whole procedure too stressful and uncomfortable: the overhead lights in most of the big stores make me feel dizzy and disorientated. One store I no longer enjoy visiting is Boots; I seem to spend almost as much time reversing my scooter as going forwards in the store, as the aisles are too close together, and if there’s a stock trolley in the way there is never enough room to get past it or to turn around. But to me, the worst of the big stores for clutter is WHSmith, which always seems to have big cardboard display structures plonked just anywhere. I tell the management about this but the clutter soon reappears: luckily none of it is too heavy so I’ve been known to mow a few of them out of my way! I’d like to give a bouquet to Matalan for having the best equipped disabled changing room; Asda’s is pretty good too. I hated it when the big stores started introducing the new queuing system, where you have to weave your way around a maze to get to the cashier; but I now find that if you’re in a wheelchair you’re not expected to compete in the slalom: you’re allowed to bypass the queues and go straight to the cashier on the end. Wow! Finally I’ve found a perk to being “enwheeled”!
Fiona Archer, by email

Give scooters access
It is impossible to access bus or train services on a mobility scooter. Everything is wheelchair accessible but there’s been no thought to access for scooter users. The amended Disability Discrimination Act 2005 specifically excludes scooters from the transportation part of the act. I have contacted my MP, my local authority, the Welsh Assembly and the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee in London over this issue. I have now got a manual wheelchair, which means I can no longer travel independently. My carer, who is also my wife, now has to accompany me on any journey I wish to take. Due to progressing multiple sclerosis and weak­ness in my left arm, I am unable to wheel myself. As the age of this country’s population continues to go up, so will the number of scooter users wishing to stay independently mobile.
Andrew Price by email

Mind rejects entry and removal powers
The No Secrets review (Disability Now web story, November 2008) provides an opportunity to ensure everyone has a right to feel safe and out of harm’s way. Health professionals, social workers and police need to work together to support swift action when there is evidence or a risk of abuse. The review asks what swift action should look like. One suggestion is that where suspicion exists that abuse has occurred, social workers should have powers to enter homes and remove individuals to a place of safety. Mind rejects such a move, which would blur the line between law enforcement and care provision. Research into the mental health system tells us that coercion reduces levels of trust and can damage therapeutic relationships. Experience shows it disempowers and stigmatises service users by removing people’s right to self-determination when they are able to make decisions for themselves. Mind’s response to the review will be informed by a large-scale consultation with our networks of people with direct experience of mental distress. We await responses before making recommendations, including on the issue of intervention and powers of entry. At the same time, we urge the Government to learn the lessons of a long history of intervention in mental health and ensure that no new powers are created before the impact of existing powers is fully assessed.
Anna Bird, Policy and Campaigns Manager, Social Inclusion and Rights team, Mind

Cold comfort on fuel
We hear a lot about the help the government is giving to pensioners with fuel bills. I am disabled and have been for the last 17 years but I never see any help with fuel bills and my heating has to be on all day. By the end of the year, I will be overdrawn with the gas and the electric. Something must be done for disabled people under 60 before we are all up to our ears in debt: we are getting cold and bankrupt.
Mr B C Turner, Tamworth, Staffordshire

Ways out of poverty
I read Les Harrison’s letter (Disability Now, November 2008, Your views) about rising fuel costs and low income with concern. Mr and Mrs Harrison should immediately contact their local Citizens Advice Bureau, Age Concern or disability advice organisation to get advice about, and help with, claiming additional benefits, for example Disability Living Allowance (or Attendance Allowance, depending on their ages) because these are not means tested and do not affect means tested benefits. They should also ask about entitlement to financial help with fuel costs due to their age and impairments: the Warm Front Scheme, Cold Weather payments and help from energy providers.
Judith McWhinney, Information Worker, Whitby Disablement Action Group