Back in October 2008, the Government announced they were to channel £55 million into strategies to help eliminate the abuse of the Blue Badge scheme.
About time to but are we seeing this in action yet?
The time has come when the Government and Local Authorities need to take a tough attitude towards this type abuse and ensure that this scheme benefits those it was intended for.
Today as I travelled around my local area, I saw little evidence that any changes have been put in place. Within 20 minutes, I saw two occurrences of this abuse. I cannot understand the selfishness and insensitivity of people who abuse the Blue Badge scheme, or of people who park in accessible parking bays without authorisation.
Created in 1971 this scheme was meant to provide essential assistance to disabled drivers but many have found it more and more difficult to locate designated bays due to the increased use by non-blue badge holders together with fraudulent blue badges.
Misuse of the badge itself by a non-disabled person is an offence under Section 117 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984, as amended by Section 35(6) of the Road Traffic Act 1991.
It is also an offence under Section 47 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 to park a vehicle which is not displaying a badge in a designated accessible parking bay.
When announcing the project, Paul Clark said “he hoped to give accredited parking enforcement officers the power to confiscate badges that are being used fraudulently”.
Proposed plans included:- a national database of legitimate blue badge-holders, use of technology such as barcodes to combat forgeries, publicity campaign to highlight blue-badge abuse and a fairer application process.
Statistics bear evidence that this abuse is wide-spread and it is believed that one in every 200 badges currently in circulation are stolen every year and these can fetch up to £1,500 on the black market – a very lucrative market it would seem!
On its announcement, Helen Smith, director of policy and campaigns at the disabled motorists’ charity Mobilise, said: "I'm really pleased that the Government is undertaking some reform because something had to be done”.
Hear, hear but I for one still await real evidence of these changes being made.
For genuine blue-badge holders, this must be tackled head on and immediately. I will continue to follow the Government’s progress on this…...
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1 comment:
Like you Danny I too am eager to see progress being made to implement the stratagies that were announced last October. It is so frustrating for disabled people to find that accessible bays have been taken by people who shouldn't have parked there and nothing is being done.
There has been a bit of movement with local authorities swapping over from GP's assessing potential Blue badge holders to having them performed by occopational therapists instead which in my opinion is a better system and also some councils are employing special Blue Badge fraud investigators. There is still a long way to go before the Blue Badge Scheme is brought back under control and becomes a real benefit to disabled people but at least something has started to be done.
Helen Smith
Director of Policy and Campaigns
Mobilise
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