Bearing in mind that motorcycle barriers which allow the passage of mobility scooters already exist (see image); if you agree that the continued use of the old sort of barriers in Barrow consitute an unreasonable denial of access to disabled people please contact your local councillor and demand that the provisions of the Disabilty Discrimination Act 1995 be taken seriously.
The image on the right shows a modern disabled-friendly motorcycle barrier from Agrid Fencing Ltd. which allows the free passage of double baby buggies and mobility scooters while still denying access to motorcycles and quad bikes.
The email sent to all known Barrow Borough Councillors on the 14th June 2009.
Dear Councillor
Please make it your business to publicly support the Love Barrow - Hate Barriers campaign to provide access to all scenic walks and footpaths for all classes of invalid carriages. It is now 14 years since the Disability Discrimination Act was passed into law, and while excellent progress has been made in some areas, access to vast swathes of our beautiful town is still being denied to disabled people by the use of old fashioned ineffective and indiscriminate motor cycle barriers, and a general lack of though by those responsible for the upkeep and maintenance of footpaths.
Barriers now exist which have been carefully designed to deny access to motorbikes and quad bikes while still allowing perfectly legal class 2 and 3 invalid carriages to pass through. I would urge you to give serious consideration to funding the installation of the new types of barriers or adapting the existing ones as a matter or urgency so that the on-going discrimination which impacts so severely on the quality of life of so many disabled people can be ended once and for all.
Please see http://www.walneyisle.co.uk/EqualAccess.shtml for more information.
Yours Sincerely.
(name and address provided)
If you would like to support our camaign the easy way please feel free to use the above e-mail as a template in your own correspondence with the council.
Don't let anyone fool you into thinking that the much touted "miles without stiles" Westfield Nature Trail is now disabled friendly... it's simply not their most dreaded foe.
EARNSE BAY - DISABLED ACCESS NEWLY DENIED
if you use this slipway yourself please consider chucking a few rocks
to one side every time you pass by so that everyone can benefit from it
The above video playlist shows my progress over four days in excercising my right to access the beach on Earnse Bay. It's an odd sensation laying flat on your back next to your mobility scooter heaving rocks out of the way and hearing passers-by mutter to each 'what he doing?'. It would have been a damn sight easier and more dignified just buying a quad and driving over the buggers. After four days of hard rock and roll down the slipway I finally got a breakthrough I'd been waiting for. Not with Barrow Borough Council of course - but with the rocks themselves who were far less imovable. Sunny Days are here again!
the bottom of this slipway is still far from easy or safe for anyone.....
if you use it regularly yourself please consider chucking a few rocks
to one side every time you pass so that everyone can benefit from it
NORTH WALNEY RESERVE - DISABLED ACCESS NEWLY DENIED
Aircraft dispersal points on North Walney - a wonderful opportunity to provide disabled access to North Walney without any new groundworks being required in the nature reserve whatsoever.
Were you aware that since the DDA came into force all disabled access to the North Walney reserve has been removed curtesy of new obstacles put in place by BEA and English Nature?
My e-mail sent to all known Barrow Borough Councillors on 25th June 2009 concering
the opportinity to create a disabled access route within Walney's northern reserve.
Dear Councillor.
The old aircraft dispersal points on North Walney present a wonderful opportunity to provide disabled access to Walney's northern nature reserve without any new groundworks being required in the nature reserve itself whatsoever. Would you be willing to support and/or take part in an attempt to negotiate with BAE regarding creating a footpath to the start of the disperal points so that the northern reserve can once more be accessed by invalid carriages?
Please discuss this matter with your collegues and contact me regarding the outcome either through my YouTube account or via colinc at walneyisle dot co dot.uk
High resolution versions of most WalneyDog videos are available to logged-in Friends of Walney account holders from the High Quality downloads area, and are to be used strictly for personal non-profit use only.
