Natalya makes a very valid point. The criteria for obtaining a blue badge can somtimes exclude those most in need.
For example going though the trials of chemotherapy and surgery for cancer treatment is not sufficient. It has to be a terminal condition. Harsh and certainly not fair.
On 12 Dec 2011, at 18:53, Natalya Dell <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> On 12/12/11 13:59, Lesley Morrice wrote:
>> Where a student has a blue badge they
>> can often park for free and the blue badge route is the one that SFE and
>> often the institutions expect the student to take.
>
> What about those students who are not eligible for a blue badge who
> still have genuine difficulty with walking distances between available
> parking and their university spaces?
>
> I am told that blue badge criteria vary by councily, I know of a
> disabled person who has a Staffordshire blue badge (as that's where she
> lives) who says Birmingham would not give them one even though they use
> "close by parking" to minimise the fatigue and energy drain of walking
> too far as they have MS. They are able to DO their job, but if they
> have to walk more than very short distances they quickly become too
> tired to do their job effectively.
>
> At Birmingham where I work the main car parks for students are at least
> 250m from the nearest building and can be as much as 500m on difficult
> (hilly, steps, uneven) terrain which is too much for some of our
> students to manage without fatigue, pain etc. I believe blue badges
> distances are about 50m which means there's a gap of "not eligible"
> while simultaneously "in genuine need". Also for some students carrying
> things like books is a bigger problem than their main mobility and
> wrangling support workers for that is hugely complicated, expensive,
> time consuming and annoying for the student and disability service in a
> way that giving the student a nearby parking permit might not be.
>
> We have taken to asking students to get a blue badge if they can (and
> some of them do need nagging) or to provide us with medical evidence
> stating how far they can walk without pain/discomfort etc. We will then
> apply to a manager and the parking team for that student to be able to
> park inside campus itself albeit not in "disabled" spaces if they don't
> have a blue badge.
>
> I am interested as disability advisors how we manage parking access in
> the context of a student with "overdoing it" being a trigger for
> worsening (sometimes permanent) of an impairment? Just because someone
> "can" absolutely does not mean that they can do it more than once every
> now and then or "should" because of considerable risk of doing oneself
> permanent harm.
>
> I'd be interested to hear how more people manage that gap between blue
> badge and genuine need and whether provision is made and if students are
> charged for that provision or not.
>
> Natalya
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