Disabled are not being treated fairly in city
I HAVE to completely agree with your correspondent Nigel Backhurst about ongoing works in Haymarket being to the severe disadvantage of disabled people.
Crossings are redesigned, disabled parking spaces lost, and the city becomes increasingly impossible for many disabled people to access, so we disappear yet further out of sight.
Again and again, decisions are taken by the council which impact hugely on disabled people, yet we are not involved or, if we are “consulted”, we are not listened to.
It’s all so thoughtless. Several of us have raised this problem many times, reminding our leaders they may be breaking equality law, yet we are dismissed or ignored.
If we question why we are not involved or why our advice is ignored, we are labelled “aggressive”, “antagonistic” or dismissed as raising real concerns for “political expediency”.
In my experience, polite requests for Equality Impact Assessments are dismissed.
Along with other disabled people, I despair at what I see as gaslighting, contempt, waste and flouting of equality laws.
Happily, there are several decent and honourable councillors and officers at the city council who see the problems for what they are and want to improve things; but to me the top team seem to be in denial and refusing to even meet with disabled activists to discuss their concerns.
It seems we will have to wait for the council to be prosecuted for flouting equality laws, an accident or a costly cock-up.
Or we must wait for current leaders and their leadership style to retire or move on and for political diversity, before the council will even pretend to listen.
The things we ask for are our rights in law.
We are not asking nor expecting to have preferential treatment, we just want to be allowed to live a better life and interact in society as much as we can.
Yet I believe disability is often perceived by others to be something negative, something bad, as if you’re not perfect, you’re a nuisance and the response “we spoke to you last year” or “not you again” is heard all too frequently.
Please listen and work with us, Sir Peter, as we all want to make our lovely city accessible for everyone.
Leicester