Thanks for sharing, a strong and eye-opening read. I think the final paragraph sums the inconsistency of it all up perfectly, and it’s nice to see that the Changing Places initiative which Poll spoke of previously was also mentioned in the article
Really useful site, thanks for sharing Sue.
Some years ago I bought a copy of the PIE guide “A Concise Blue Badge Road Atlas”.
I say “bought” because it was free.
Two years later having mislaid the first, I got a second copy - NEW EDITION - well, thats what the cover says. £9.99
It also carries the logo of DirectGov and the Highways Agency.
It was quite easy to see that it was not up-to-date. I know that there was/is a disabled toilet in Marlborough (needs a RADAR key), and the road atlas does not show this (some years after it was built). NEW EDITION, yeah right! I found the old copy, and could not find any difference in a random check.
On the back cover is a URL for a DirectGov “improved” Blue Badge map.
Before writing this, I checked the URL, All you get to now is the general information page on Blue Badges ( a sub-page of the general information on driving). A bit like putting NEW, IMPROVED, on a packet of detergent, but the same old product inside.
There is a free application for Android Tablets called “Wheelmate” which is a lot more use, but this relies on users to add locations that have disabled facilities. A great idea that is bound not to work as well as it needs to. If you are local, you go home, if you are not local then you probably have not gone to that area because there are no disabled facilities shown.
So come on, MS Society, here is an area where you could make a big difference now. Forget research that will not pay off for 10, 20, 30 years; we need disabled loos now, and we need to be able to find them.
Geoff