Obstruction of high street disabled bays by local councillor during a fete

[VinceW]

yesterday i witnessed a councillor representing our area placing police cones around the only 2 disabled parking bays (and solely those bays) for a transit van to turn up almost an hour later to unload stalls from a local event (a fete type of thing) on the town high street.

I got the impression he didn’t do this within his official role, and he said nothing to the contrary when i confronted him.

I’m wondering if anyone on this forum would know whether this is within a councillor’s powers,, whether he needed to arrange this in advance (and how I’d find out if he had), and if not which (if any) laws he broke?

I will take this further if I’m confident i can have him held accountable for this.


Cheers

Vince

[Paul]

I'd suggest the local newspaper might be interested in this.

Are there any local Disabled charities available to help you?

Search for Disability Rights Solictors who may give you some legal advise on this. Google is your friend here.

[Capt billabong]

I take the wife to college and this week the two disabled bays was blocked by large hmv to which that college does hgv driving lessons then on the other disabled bay a taxi doing a course was parked so out of four bays only one was being used for its purpose.

[Lighttouch]

yesterday i witnessed a councillor representing our area placing police cones around the only 2 disabled parking bays (and solely those bays) for a transit van to turn up almost an hour later to unload stalls from a local event (a fete type of thing) on the town high street.

Well Vince, I had to smile as its not the first time it's happened and it won't be the last.

When big events happen in Manchester they 'take over' blue badge parking spaces for delivery vans of tressel tables and usually let you know what was happening the night before on an A4 poster stuck on a lamppost set in 12 point type. The Council would supply temporary blue badge parking elsewhere but not tell you where. If you stumbled across it - the newly allocated bays would have 'no waiting' signs and cones surrounding them but with an A4 piece of paper stuck on a lamp post saying they were reserved for BB holders! These bays were never taken up for obvious reasons

Solution
Get the name of the Head of Highways at your local Council and email him a letter outlining your issue. Now it's best to talk in their language to make it sound official - that way they'll respond and learn.

Something like,

Dear Mr ..........

Re Misuse of blue badge parking spaces by Councillor xyz on 13 Sept on .......... Road

Please could you inform me if there is a new policy and procedure regarding blue badge accessible parking bays. It would appear that Councillors can now take control of blue badge accessible parking bays for use by their partner organizations when needing to set up stalls in the high street.

Is this considered 'good practice' reserving space for vans by placing cones around them and preventing the use of the bays by Blue Badge holders.

Were alternative arrangements made for Blue Badge parking elsewhere locally.

We can only expect this issue to happen again unless lessons can be learnt. Maybe it's time Councillors had compulsory Disability Action Training.

Look forward to hearing your reply with interest.

Regards

Mr ABC

[littlebib]

brilliant letter