DISABLED car owners have criticised Wiltshire Council’s decision to introduce parking charges for Blue Badge holders in their car parks.
The decision by the council means that anyone with a Blue Badge – which can by applied for by people with disabilities or health conditions – will have to pay to use all the town centre car parks in Melksham, which were previously free.
Wiltshire Council is also increasing car parking charges by 10p per hour on every tariff, introducing a Sunday charge in all car parks, and removing free event parking from town councils.
Blue badge holders will still be able to park for free on the street for three hours, as long as there are no loading restrictions.
“This is disgusting on so many levels,” said one local, “it’s bad enough being disabled but for the council to do this is intimidating to people who are disabled by no choice of their own – greed, greed, greed.”
“We will be forced to park on double-yellow lines, which will cause traffic chaos,” said Blue Badge holder, Ann James, speaking to Melksham News. “People aren’t going to use the car parks when they start charging, as the parking meters are too far away from the disabled parking spaces. When you have a bad back, walking over there is so inconvenient.”
“It might be a good idea to put a payment meter close to disabled parking spaces so it doesn’t defeat the object of having spaces close to shops etc,” added another resident.
Following the news of parking charges for Blue Badge holders, town councillor, Sue Mortimer, is rallying support for the idea that the town council ‘lease’ the disabled parking spaces in the Church Street car park.
Cllr Sue Mortimer told Melksham News, “It’s not right that these charges have been introduced, especially as Melksham is supposed to be an ‘age friendly’ town.
“I shall do everything I can to see if the town council can lease these eight disabled spaces in Church Street car park, as I think they are the most important in the town as they give ‘level access’ to the town.
“We need to keep these spaces free for the disabled people of Melksham. It’s not all about the cost of the parking, it’s about the physical requirement to go and get a ticket from the meter – the location of these disabled spaces, [in the Church Street car park] were never designed for people to pay!”
According to Wiltshire councillor, Gavin Grant, who is the shadow Liberal Democrat finance and economic development spokesperson, Wiltshire Council hopes to raise up to £40,000 a year by introducing parking charges for Blue Badge holders.
However, town councillor Louisa Lewis said, “Trying to raise £40,000 from disabled people out of parking revenue seems obtuse to me given the vast sums of money paid to the higher positions within Wiltshire Council.
“To my knowledge, salaries could be as high as £1.5million a year for just the top 15 or so civil servants.”
Leader of Wiltshire Council, cllr Richard Clewer, has defended the changes to parking charges.
He said, “We knew this year’s budget would be among the most challenging to plan, as the pandemic has meant that we haven’t been able to make the type of savings that we normally would have over the last couple of years. Therefore, we had difficult decisions to make that we discussed at length, including introducing charges for blue badge holders.
“Ultimately we think we’ve made the right calls that will ensure we stay on a sustainable financial footing for the long-term, rather than making short-term fixes. We don’t intend to increase parking charges again for the next four years and introducing charging for blue badge holders will bring us into line with other local authorities.
“We have made these decisions for the long-term good of the county and the vital services we need to provide.”
There will be a Traffic Regulation Order consultation regarding the proposed car parking changes, and the council has said it encourages people to have their say through that process.
Report by Ben Fenlon, Melksham Independent News; additional reporting by Daniel Mumby, local democracy reporter.