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Council van parked in disabled parking bay
Date published: 09/03/2010
The new Phoenix Centre in Heywood has disabled parking bays close to the door, for use of course by disabled people, however, yesterday, as well as a number of vehicles without disabled badges parked in the disabled bays, there was also a council catering van.
Asked to comment on Council employees misusing disabled bays, a spokesman for the Council said: “We will be reminding all our catering van drivers about the importance of observing disabled bays.
"Often when delivering food we need to temporarily park as close as possible to an entrance, and the vehicle is moved minutes later. For some buildings, vehicles have dispensation passes for use when works or services are being carried out close to premises. These passes are only used where the vehicle needs to park as close as possible to the premises and where alternative parking is not available.”
“In this particular instance we had no justifiable reason for parking in the space and our staff will be warned about this behaviour, which is unacceptable. All employees are advised with regard to their responsibilities when parking their vehicle and should observe these at all times. Our officers aim to ensure that designated disabled parking areas are used only by people displaying a valid blue badge. If they see a vehicle parked in contravention of the restriction in place, a penalty charge notice will be issued.”
Heywood Councillor Colin Lambert said: "There is a constant problem at the Phoenix Centre with people without blue badges parking in the disabled bays and the Council should take action to stop it happening."
Comments
What does Mr Lambert propose that the council do? Employ somebody to monitor the car spaces?
Bizarre given that you were proposing that the council reduce its head count at the budget meeting recently.
They were making a delivery of hot food for goodness sake, the van will have been there for a few minutes at most, it might be a bit of mischief on the part of the photographer but they were just doing their job as best they could, instead of warning the staff about this behaviour perhaps a delivery area should be allocated for this purpose instead of chastising the staff for doing their job.
I was the photographer and there was no mischief, the van was parked in the disabled bay for a couple of hours, but there is no excuse for even a couple of minutes, the driver wasn't disabled ergo has no right to park there.
I am a blue badge holder and find it frustrating when people abuse the designated bays. I am furious when these abusers are council/police/post office workers, all of whom should know better.
I applaud MJX for taking the time to bring it to the attention of all of us.
Many, many thanks.
Have Your Say
Councillor Lambert, we visit Rochdale town centre regularly and always park at the bus station multi storey car park. you see space after space empty and they are all disabled persons spaces. I have no objection to disabled parking, however, I feel that the number of spaces not being used should be monitored and if under used, they should revert back to able-bodied person spaces.
By James Allan Whitehead @ 09/03/2010 17:59:33
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