Concerns over York blue badge parking ban support measures

Concerns have been raised over the time being taken to bring in measures to cut the impact of York's blue badge ban.

The permanent ban on disabled parking in pedestrianised areas of the city centre was introduced in November 2021.

The council had agreed to improve accessibility for disabled people, but many of the measures had yet to be introduced, a meeting has heard.

Those measures included more city centre seating and expanded provision of mobility aids, the meeting was told.

York-born actor Dame Judi Dench recently called for an end to the ban.

Blue badge access was removed during the Covid pandemic to allow visitors to socially distance on the historic city's narrow streets.

It was later made permanent, with City of York Council saying at the time that removing the blue badge exemption was necessary to allow anti-terror defences to be installed to protect visitors and shoppers.

At a meeting of the customer and corporate services scrutiny committee this week, the council's director of transport James Gilchrist said several mitigation measures were now in place.

Those included extra funding for Shopmobility and Dial-a-Ride services, as well as additional disabled parking bays outside the pedestrian areas, he said.

But Labour councillor Pete Kilbane asked Mr Gilchrist: "Wouldn't it have made more sense to have had the mitigations in place before taking away the access?"

Mr Gilchrist said he agreed: "If I had a magic wand, we would do the mitigations first, but the process didn't fall like that."

Katie Lomas, another Labour councillor, and blue badge holder, questioned how effective the mitigations would be and how the council would measure this.

Mr Gilchrist said the council had always acknowledged that, for some people, no mitigation measure would be sufficient to replace what had been lost through the end of blue badge parking.

Protests have been held by campaign group Reverse the Ban (RTB), whose members said the "discriminatory decisions" over the end to blue badge parking had hit disabled and older people the hardest.

Disability rights campaigner Flick Williams told the committee: "More promised consultations, feasibility studies and intentions to seek funding mitigations are of course required to be delivered at the time of an adverse impact being identified for persons with a protected characteristic."

Earlier this week, James Bond star Dame Judi said she gave the campaign against the blue badge ban her "wholehearted support".

The Oscar-winning actor, 88, said: "York city centre is a rare jewel that should be free for all to enjoy, including those with a disability and for whom accessible parking is essential."

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