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 | You and Yours - Transcript ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio 4 |
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| TX: 22.07.03 - Call You and Yours - Your views on disabled access
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PRESENTER: PETER WHITE WHITE On Call You and Yours at around 12.30 how ready and willing is Britain to bear the cost of the so-called inclusive society? Laws which come into force next year go the furthest yet to force business and public bodies to make disabled customers welcome, they will have to remove physical barriers and abandon negative attitudes which make it hard or impossible for people with disabilities to use their services. But as the Disability Rights Commission's policy director Marie Pye told us yesterday despite knowing about these changes for almost a decade many have done little or nothing to prepare the way. PYE I think our concern at the Disability Rights Commission is that so many people have just sat on their laurels really or done a good impersonation of an ostrich and stuck their hand in the sand and that's not really good enough. We don't want disabled people to have to take cases, we want service providers to start making these changes, well preferably several years ago but at least now. Some have, some are doing very well, others definitely aren't. WHITE So is Marie Pye right to say court cases should be avoided or might it be the only way to get this law taken seriously? Is the law strong enough when the claim that you can't afford to do it or that it might bump up the cost to other customers can get you off the hook? Or is it actually unfair and unrealistic to ask business to bear the burden of changing the face of Britain's buildings and people's attitudes? After all these attitudes run very deep and they're encountered by disabled people, however successful they may have become. James Strachan, profoundly deaf and now chair of the Audit Commission, still vividly recalls the impact of this incident. STRACHAN Well I can remember being stuck in a country railway station to buy a ticket and the light was broken, it was very dark and clearly nobody had washed the screen between me and the assistant for years and we were having terrible trouble and I just couldn't lip read him. And finally, with a queue behind me, in the end he said - Look I'm sorry would you just stand on one side while I deal with the normal people? And you can have no idea what it feels like to be told that. All that man had to do was adjust his mind, nothing more, nothing less. WHITE James Strachan with a painful memory. Do call us with your experiences and your reactions to the new laws. Joining me to listen to your calls is the minister for disabled people Maria Eagle and that number to ring, lines are open, 08700 100 444. Call You and Yours PRESENTER: PETER WHITE WHITE Our subject for Call You and Yours today: how accessible is Britain to disabled people and do the laws which extend the duties of businesses and public bodies go far enough or maybe too far? It's a subject we've been examining and we're going to examine all through the week and this is your chance to have your say. Yesterday's programme, which concentrated on transport - public transport - certainly provoked plenty of response, including an e-mail from Brenda Bell of Storrington. Brenda said: "Although I'm not registered disabled I have mobility problems because of painful knees, I'd love to be able to go to London by train but just can't negotiate all the steps necessary. Will anything ever be done about having to cross the lines by bridge or having to go up huge numbers of steps?" But the debate's about far more than travel and transport, it's about access to buildings and the embarrassment caused by attitudes which seem to seize on any reason for excluding disabled people. The actress Julie Fernandez, now well known as the girl in the wheelchair in the TV comedy series The Office, told us this typical story. FERNANDEZ About three or four years ago I went to a nightclub with my brother and about 10 or 15 of our friends, the vast majority of them which are guys. And we were all queuing up to get into the nightclub and the bouncers look at me and they're like sorry madam you can't come in here, wheelchair users not allowed, you're a fire hazard. Which was a bit of a shock really when we'd queued for ages and ages and it's embarrassing for me at the end of the day because I've got a group of guys and friends around me who really want to go in and we're not being allowed in because of me, I'm trying to explain to the bouncer that if there was a fire I would be the first person that's thrown over one of the guys' shoulders and we would escape, it really wouldn't be a problem, or it wouldn't be any more of a problem than it would for anybody else. WHITE Julie Fernandez. But not everyone is quite so sanguine. One more e-mail for you from David Parry. He says: "I worked in the travel industry for 25 years, including in one company for 20, we had disabled access, we had toilets, lifts, ramps etc., this was a company with over 50 employees but we didn't get one job application from a disabled person and my point is how much money is being spent and for how much use?" Well the lines are open, all those subjects are under debate - aspects of it, whatever you'd like to discuss. And I'm also joined by the minister with responsibility for the implementation of this part of the Act, Maria Eagle, who is responsible for disabled people and that number again 08700 100 444. I'll go to the minister in a minute but first let's take two or three of your calls. Ann Watson is calling me, Ann good afternoon. WATSON Good afternoon. I wanted to make two points - the first being - referring to your previous point about expense, it is a lot of money to add all the necessities to make wheelchairs have access but there are many young mothers in the world and they'd all appreciate that access with their prams. WHITE So your point is actually this is not just about disabled people … WATSON Absolutely, disregard a whole lot of young parents as well. And secondly, I'd like to say that I feel stations ought to have - stations near major hospitals ought to have special considerations. Both Denmark Hill station, which is near Kings College Hospital and the Maudsley and there are many people with crutches, as well as wheelchairs, only temporarily perhaps, not registered disabled … WHITE You're referring back to the fact that we were saying yesterday that the Strategic Rail Authority are going to find it very difficult to update all the stations, what you really want is some kind of priority list as it were? WATSON Yes. WHITE Okay, thank you very much indeed. Let me go to Richard Hutton who's also calling from London, Richard good afternoon. BUTTON Oh good morning, good afternoon Mr White. It's Button actually. WHITE Oh I'm sorry. BUTTON That's alright. As for rail stations, between London and East Croydon there are only two stations that are accessible to me and one because I've got the keys to the station and the other one is useless because there's no staff there. WHITE So how do you cope, I mean do you use the railways? BUTTON Ooh every day of the week. When they were originally in existence Connex South Central bought me a rail ramp for testing and I've still got it and they also gave me the keys to the local station so should the platform staff not be on duty I can get on the train. WHITE Well it sounds as if you're in a privileged position Mr Button. BUTTON Well not really, not really. WHITE So what's your view about the overall state of the railways and your ability … BUTTON Diabolical in one word because I mean although I've got my own ramp I still have problems with some train crews, not many, but some refuse to let me use my ramp and I then have to wait, such as London termini, I have to wait and I've waited up to 24 minutes to get off trains in London, they refuse to let me use my own ramp. WHITE Okay, Richard thank you very much indeed. I want to go to Mary Burton, Mary good afternoon. BURTON Good afternoon. WHITE Yes what's the point you wanted to make? BURTON Why can't everybody [indistinct words] … I just have got through life by coping. WHITE So your point is people can't actually - everyone can't necessarily be catered for? BURTON No but there's another important point I wish to make, that I think somebody like - I mean I'm fortunate in that I had a reasonable education and I can cope but I think we have to appreciate the people who did the fighting for us. WHITE Okay Mary, I want to go to Pat Reid if I may, Pat good afternoon. REID Good afternoon. WHITE Yes, what's your feeling about this? REID I'm an American but I've been here for 12 years and I go back to America all the time but the people you see in wheelchairs who have access to like Disneyland or the underground in New York city it's just shocking and you realise that in London there are no handicapped people - they can't use the tube, they can't use the buses, they can't use the train, I mean it's appalling. WHITE That's a bit of an exaggeration isn't it Pat? REID No it's not. WHITE You don't think so? REID No not at all. Well 40 years ago the United States went through this fight about oh it's going to cost too much for libraries to be accessed and we're going to have to pull down all the curbs and everything but there's no comparison to what disabled people can do in the United States to what they can do here and it really is a fact that this society doesn't want to help their disabled people. I mean they'll pay for the Royal Family, they'll pay for all this other stuff, if you're very rich or you're very poor this society will take care of you, disabled people have all the rights, or should have all the rights, of everybody else and there's no excuse that in the 21st Century that a disabled person can't use the tube or the train, that's ridiculous. WHITE Pat Reid thank you very much indeed. Let me bring in Maria Eagle, you know about the Americans With Disabilities Act, I'm quite sure, but Pat Reid actually has got a point hasn't she, if you go on the underground, the subway, in Washington and in New York and in many American cities there's absolutely no comparison with what happens here? EAGLE Well I think that's right, I mean I think that we've got a long way to go when it comes to transport. But you have to remember that a lot of our underground and railway infrastructure was built long before anybody thought about making it accessible to disabled people and so we have to make up the difference, we have to improve it as we go and that's partly what the legal changes that we're talking about today will do but of course it always takes time. WHITE Can I ask you specifically about trains. I'm sure you know that yesterday we were talking about trains and access and the Strategic Rail Authority who have made it absolutely clear that there's no way that they are going to be able to make trains - stations accessible by 2004. Now if the government's advisory body can't do this it's hardly surprising that small businesses are complaining they're being asked to do things that they shouldn't be asked to do. EAGLE Well first of all I don't accept that small businesses are generally complaining about the legal requirements that are being put on them from next year. And secondly we've got to remember that the Disability Discrimination Act was passed in 1995 … WHITE Which has given the railways nine years to do something about it. EAGLE It's given them nine years to do something about it and it's just not acceptable for them to say that all of a sudden they've just now thought about it and they can't. They like everybody else are going to have to be making moves towards doing something about this. Now the law - the final part of the DDA, the part that we're talking about here, that requires changes to physical premises, will be implemented from next October and those to whom it applies and it includes the railway stations are going to have to make sure that they comply with it. WHITE So would you expect the Strategic Rail Authority or individual train operators to find themselves facing cases in 2004? EAGLE Well if they don't comply with the law then clearly somebody could take them to court and they're going to then have to show that they're making changes which are reasonable in accordance with their size and the amount of money that they have and various other things which indicate reasonableness, they're going to have to convince a court that they're moving in the right direction. WHITE Should you be doing more to make them do it before October 2004? EAGLE Well we've been trying very hard for the last few years to encourage people to do it, in fact one of the things that I do in my job as a minister is go around the country encouraging those who are about to have these obligations to be aware of them and to take steps to make the improvements that they need to make. And we have to remember that for many service providers, not just transport providers, this law has been sat there waiting to be implemented, that they've known about it, many of them have undergone renovations to their premises and whatever, it's at that time that you have to think about building in better accessibility and there's no reason why those who have buildings which are used by the public shouldn't be able to do that, they can do it. WHITE Let's take some more calls. Ian Waterhouse is calling, Ian good afternoon. WATERHOUSE Good afternoon. WHITE Yeah, what's your view? WATERHOUSE I'm also disabled but I'm feeling rather the other way I'm afraid. We have rights and responsibilities, I'm lucky I'm not in wheelchair but I can't walk without crutches and I can't walk very far. And society supports me in many ways very well but do I have the right to expect society to alter virtually everything out there in case I should wish to use it? I'm a minority. WHITE So when you hear someone like Pat Reid say people in your situation in the United States would be able to do this and certainly this is true in the big cities what do you say? WATERHOUSE Well I think the point - I don't know exactly what happens in the United States, I'm sure whatever happens in the big cities probably does not happen in the smaller towns and we're talking about everybody here aren't we. Essentially if money is put into public buildings, if public money is used to put into buildings or businesses then it's quite reasonable and right that those buildings should be adapted and designed to cater to everyone's needs. WHITE Aren't the railways a public resource, wouldn't they fall into that category? WATERHOUSE They are indeed but the point needs to be made that some of our railways are so old it is quite impossible to do and I live in Eastbourne, there are difficulties with railways because of platform heights and the likes but essentially a great deal is being done and they are catering especially to people in wheelchairs. But at the end of the day there's so much of the world which is actually commercial, if a business wants to take my money off me they will cater for me, they'll give me parking, they'll give me access, if they don't I won't go there. WHITE Ian, thank you very much indeed. Josephine Spray, I think it is, Josephine good afternoon. SPRAY Hello. WHITE What's - you are talking about churches I think specifically. SPRAY Well I'm priest in charge of a medieval church in North Bedfordshire and we're very anxious obviously to make the church accessible and currently we can get wheelchair access into the church but the difficulty is to get to the altar through [indistinct word] steps we would have to make such radical alterations to the church which English Heritage, I don't think, would like. And we're anxious to know … WHITE Have you asked - have you asked them? SPRAY Well we've got a lot of directives out but nothing that gives us any instruction on how we obey the law and how we care for a listed building and the only way we could do it, I think, is by putting a movable ramp which would make other parts of the church inaccessible to the ordinary congregation. So it's really two things about which takes precedence - caring for a listed building or obeying the law on accessibility or - and also is somebody prepared to give us some simple directives on how we go about knowing what we're to do because we've been working on this for some time now. WHITE Okay, well I'm going to do something very unfair now because I know we have an architect on the line and he wouldn't have had notice of this but we might as well ask him - Whitcliffe Noble, I know you didn't ring about that but what would you say to Josephine? NOBLE I think the important thing is, is to remember that architecture is not a pure science therefore there's not going to one answer to every problem. But I think what is possible is that if you look at the terms of good management, as well as preparing for adapting buildings, put those two together and you may find a solution which is satisfactory. WHITE But is there - is there a conflict though, as Josephine thinks there is, between good access and taking what people would describe as proper care of the building and respecting its historical perspective? NOBLE Yes well Peter we do have a legacy of heritage buildings here and therefore you do have to weigh up if the enjoyment of that building is important to maintain you have to weigh that up against the accessibility. But I don't think that is a - it may be a conflict but I don't think it's impossible to find a solution. For example, there are number of listed buildings, heritage buildings around in the United Kingdom where achievements have been very great and we mustn't actually downgrade it by saying it is all a problem. It is a problem for us who are disabled but it is a solution that is attainable and I believe that is possible. And there is an organisation, a trust, which is known as ADAPT - Access for Disabled People to Arts Premises. They are producing a record to show not what is the prescription about what you have to do but rather to show what has been done and that's the important message we have to get across. WHITE Right stay where you are, can I just say to Josephine before we lose her that we're going to be discussing this matter very specifically about churches on Thursday so we would like people to listen to that but Keith Cook, possibly the point you're about to make maybe Whitcliffe Noble might be able to tell you something, anyway. COOK Yes thank you very much. Yes I'm associated very loosely with a small theatre in this area, which is a 55 seater … WHITE Sorry where are you? COOK In Hitchen in North Hertfordshire and it's on the top floor of a three storey building, which is a little arts centre in Letchworth and whether it may or may not be physically possible to get a lift up to this building, to the top floor, it's obviously going to cost much more money than a 55 seat theatre can support. So we've been led to understand that when the Act comes into force then the theatre licence issued by the local authority will be withdrawn - that may or may not be true but if it is it means that nobody will be able to see any performances there because we can't cater for perhaps a few people a year who can't get access because of a lift and I just wondered if your view was that that was fair? WHITE Well it's not my view I don't think that matters. I'd be interested to hear whether Whitcliffe Noble thinks that it's likely that their licence would be withdrawn. NOBLE I think there's always that danger but on the other hand I think you do have to look at the provision and also the use of good management. There may be other features in that building which are accessible and maybe disabled people would say well the benefits of enjoying that building but I can't reach that particular level are so great that we can manage within it and management of the building can provide that. I do think of course that to do an audit to find out exactly what the provision is because as I said architecture is not a pure science there may be a number of solutions which would be acceptable for disabled patrons. WHITE Whitcliffe Noble thank you very much and Keith Cook thank you. Can I just go quickly to the minister. Would you expect local authorities to withdraw licences in these circumstances? EAGLE Well no I wouldn't because the issue here is about reasonableness. A small theatre which has probably got voluntary actors and actresses who do it in their spare time isn't going to be expected to spend millions of pounds to make their premises accessible to everybody in the same way in which say a multinational corporation might be expected to spend some money, it's a matter of proportion. Accessibility goes beyond just the traditional issue of mobility. I mean Keith may be able to make his theatre accessible for blind people, for example, in a way that enables them to access the performances whereas it might be much more unreasonable and difficult and even impossible for him to make his theatre accessible to wheelchair users. So it's about what's reasonable in all the circumstances, taking into account the nature of the organisation - whether it's voluntary, whether it's flush with money - these kinds of things can generally be dealt with in a sensible way and that's why the reasonableness criteria are there in the legislation. No court is going to close down a theatre in the circumstances that Keith has described. WHITE Let me go to James Rostell, we may come back to this issue of what's reasonable. James good afternoon. ROSTELL Good afternoon. WHITE What's your view? ROSTELL Well my colleague and I run the Disability Access and Facilities Association and we've been trained to go out and as far as we're concerned do the government's job for them by letting everybody know that the law is in force and the fact that come 2004 what is going to happen in October is the fact that over eight million people will be able to go out and take action against businesses who don't comply. We've been in touch with all the chambers of trade throughout the country and up in Scotland as well. The majority of the response has been oh well it doesn't really apply to us until October 2004. So when Maria Eagle says that the small businesses don't know about it, she's absolutely right because nobody's been informed and we're finding this all over the place. WHITE Perhaps we should - could go back to Maria on that because that's a very specific point. Has government perhaps - perhaps to some extent fostered an attitude amongst business that they can just sort of let it go, it's quite a long way away and it's not going to affect them? EAGLE Oh certainly not, I mean we spend half of our time trying to inform people about it. In fact there's an information pack at the moment that small businesses can access called Act Now the DDA and Your Business. WHITE So why are so many people saying they don't know about it, they have heard it before? EAGLE Yes I know, I think the latest research that we've done indicates that the level of awareness is going up quite fast but it's still too low. And in some senses I think it's partly because people don't deal with these things until they're actually upon them. Now that's a short-sighted way of dealing with it because what small businesses have to remember is that there's a real business case for dealing with these issues now. They're eight and a half million disabled people and as Julie Fernandez said at the beginning of the programme there's a lot of business to be had, they have £45 billion a year to spend and they want to go out with their friends like everybody else. Now that club that she described I expect ending up losing the patronage of 15 people as a result of the fact that they weren't accessible and that the attitudes of the bouncers were wrong. Now if they get that kind of thing right they're going to make more profit. So what I'd say to businesses is think now, act now, don't leave it until somebody challenges you, you're missing out on a major business opportunity here. WHITE I think our next caller will perhaps speak to some extent to that, Linda Ireneschild calling from Brixton, Linda good afternoon. IRENESCHILD Good afternoon. WHITE Yeah what's your view? IRENESCHILD Well first of all I'd like to remind those smug people who think that it's not worth it for only one person or something because it could happen to them at any point, it could happen overnight that one moment you're fully functioning and able and the next day you're in a wheelchair. So having addressed that I'd like to speak about the extent of wheelchair access. I went to a restaurant recently which had a Stanner stair lift to take me down to the lower part of the restaurant, I was really impressed, I was delighted. I went down the stair lift, somebody else took my chair and there was a wheelchair access loo, which I was really pleased about. WHITE So your point is it can be done? IRENESCHILD It can be done and it can be done really cheaply. There was a nine inch step up into this wheelchair access loo, so I asked the waiter how that was going to work and he said - Oh it's not a problem we have a ramp. I said - Well where is the ramp? And he said - It's upstairs. So I would have to have to, if I wanted to use the toilet, ask - tell a waiter that I needed the toilet, he would then have to take a colleague away from serving people, go upstairs, get a ramp, bring it down the stairs to allow me to go into the loo. That sets up resentment towards wheelchair users because people who are being served lose their waiter all of a sudden. It means that I have to announce to everybody that I want to go to the toilet. WHITE But had finance been attached to a brain that wouldn't have been necessary would it? IRENESCHILD It wouldn't have been necessary and we can see that turning doorways and automatic doors are put into all sorts of shops and places just to make it easier for people with bags and bags and bags of shopping to walk through the door, well if that's a justification for that amount of expenditure and research into how to make spinning doors and opening automatic doors then I don't know why a few people are quibbling about putting a ramp in or plumbing a toilet into a slightly larger room to accommodate a wheelchair. WHITE Linda thanks very much, I want to fit in Tony Grundy before we go, Tony good afternoon. GRUNDY Hi, we've only got a bit left and I'd like to propose a radical proposal. We are not going to make accessibility to every restaurant, train station, bus station in the land a feasible opportunity in the next 12 months. Why not spend the money, as your last caller said, on educating staff, on making available black cab people carrier forms of transport from A to B, which can often be much more financially realistic. WHITE Alright, I know you had loads of points because you sent us a very good e-mail but let me ask Maria Eagle - would the money be better spent on services and information than perhaps on expensive building work? EAGLE Well we're doing both, I mean it's for the government and those who want to promote these changes to make sure everybody knows about them, we're spending money on that and those organisations and services - pubs, clubs - they get refurbished every two or three years, it's about engaging your brain at the time in which you're about to spend your money, probably no more expensive than the usual refurbishment. WHITE That's a good point on which to end. Maria Eagle, minister, thank you and all those who called thank you very much indeed. 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