Disabled parking requires regulation

Sir, - The letter from Laurie Richards (April 17) had me incensed.

How fortunate that he is able to park in the city centre and take a taxi when attending Ninewells Hospital to avoid the charge for disabled parking there and instead park in a blue badge space for free in the centre of Dundee.

How fortunate that he is able-bodied enough to leave his car there and seek out a taxi to complete his journey.

A blue badge is supposedly restricted to those who have “permanent and substantial disability which causes inability to walk or very considerable difficulty in walking”.

I do have one. A blue badge is, in my understanding, to allow access to accessible parking so the disabled driver or passenger can then access where they want to go. However, many disabled people and their relatives view the blue badge as free parking.

If I am travelling alone by car I have to carefully research where I want to go and look at access and provision of any disabled parking in order to work out if I can manage alone.

When I arrive at my destination, be it Dundee, Glasgow, Stirling or elsewhere, I have been reduced to tears of frustration on more than one occasion due to the lack of any available accessible spaces.

I have sometimes had to travel all the way back without having been able to get out of my car.

I would gladly pay the same as an able-bodied person who uses a car in order to park in an accessible space that is not taken up all day by someone who uses it while at work, or, dare I say, abuses the system because it is free parking.

So, I do agree with Laurie Richards, let us have the regulations standardised across Scotland and let us all pay the regulation standard parking charges, be it council or private parking provision.

If this is too unpalatable for someone who can afford taxi fares, at the very least let us have the same three-hour time limit as in England to increase the turnover of cars in the accessible disabled parking spaces. Dr Phyllis Windsor. Cach-a-Cheile, The Holdings, Kinfauns.

Disabled parking spaces in South Street in Perth city centre.