LETTER: Farewell to Steyning...

My wife is aged 79 and has suffered Parkinson's disease for 15 years, is confined to a wheelchair and lives in a care home due to her disability.

She has a blue badge for parking purposes. My vehicle has been specially adapted to accommodate her in the wheelchair in the rear of the vehicle. Last weekend we decided to take a trip to Steyning as we used to enjoy going there when my wife was more mobile. I parked in the main street car park and displayed the blue badge.

On passing the car park notice-board I noticed that people using a blue badge had to pay unless they were in receipt of the higher level of Disability Living Allowance, (now known as Personal Independence Payment).

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My wife doesn’t qualify for this as it is age related and she is older than 64years.

I duly paid the parking fee only to find in small print that the machine doesn’t give change. What’s 25p between friends? Yet another money-making machine aimed at increasing the establishment’s coffers.

After our strolling we decided to have a coffee and a cake in the local tea rooms only to find it had been modified since our last visit.

Admittedly it was busy but I couldn’t find any room for a wheelchair so we left. So a planned pleasant afternoon was spoiled by some penny-pinching bureaucrat who has decided my wife’s disability is not severe enough to warrant an hour’s free parking.

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If anybody knows this person please pass on my comments and wish him/her good health so they won’t have to incur the stigma of being disabled in the future.

Note: how is this discrimination of the disabled monitored? Possibly a parking attendant requesting the motorist’s benefits to ascertain free parking or not. I think not. Farewell Steyning, we won’t be returning.

D. Carter

Willowbrook Park, Lancing

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