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	TX: 20.12.04 - Disabled access PRESENTERS: PETER WHITE and CAROLYN ATKINSON

	WHITE Since October every public building is supposed to be a little bit like this: CLIP The counter here is specifically lowered so a wheelchair user would come in through our front entrance, there's also a hearing loop there as well. We're going into the lift now, which is actually the access point for all visitors into the arch, and the Braille lifts so visually impaired users can work their way up to the third floor. WHITE Three months ago Part 3 of the Disability Discrimination Act came into force. It was heralded as a major breakthrough for disabled people in this country. Companies and organisations would have to look to their laurels because this part of the Act would mean that they would have to go much further and make far more effort to make their services accessible to everyone - not just wheelchair users, deaf people, people with eyesight problems, people with learning disabilities or who suffered from psychiatric illnesses. So has the world changed? That's what we'll be trying to find out about today. We've assembled a team of experts to assess just that - people from charities, businesses, organisations of disabled people, local authorities and we'll be also discussing the impact of the legislation across Britain, legislation which was reported as likely to bankrupt companies and close ancient tourist attractions. ATKINSON And I'm Carolyn Atkinson and I've been speaking to the people who run those places which featured in those headlines to see how they've really been fairing. I've also spoken to a man for whom trying on a shirt in a leading high street clothes store proved a humiliation. CLIP He came down with a shirt and then pointed me in the direction of a cupboard to try it on because the changing rooms are actually down some more stairs. When you say a cupboard - this was a wheelchair user's changing room? No it was a cupboard. I've been in worse cupboards but it was a cupboard. ATKINSON How that experience could make that man the first person in Britain to start legal action under the new law. And of course if you want to comment on anything you hear during the programme you can call us on 0800 044 044 or e-mail us via our website at bbc.co.uk/radio4 and we'll be reflecting your views, we hope, at the end of the programme. WHITE But we start with the law and exactly what it is. Joce Murphy of the Disability Law Service is here, that's an organisation which advises disabled people on their legal rights. Joce, I mean tell us exactly what happened on October 1st, what was different? MURPHY The main thing is that Part 3 has been around a long time, the particular section deals with physical features which obstruct or impede access to services and this section deals with what service providers have to do. Before the 1st October all they had to do was to find alternative ways of delivering the service, where there was such a feature. After the 1st October they've got three more options - they don't supersede the previous ones but the three options are now - they have to remove the feature, alter the feature, find another way of avoiding the feature. So you've got four options instead of one now. WHITE And does that - that feature doesn't necessarily have to be physical, it could be simply your inability to use the service? MURPHY No I think it's pretty much exactly that - a physical feature. There is a description of what a physical feature means and it really is a physical one. What the regulations - they have activated the other three options - say is that it will not be reasonable to remove a feature which complies with a relevant design standard and that relevant design standard of course is the thing this [indistinct words] in and that just literally is dealing with physical bits, obstructions and buildings. WHITE Now the real point about this is that although that sounds like a fairly revolutionary thing it does depend on this word "reasonable" doesn't it and nobody seems to quite know what reasonable is. MURPHY I think that's what you're supposed go to court and find out. WHITE Do you mean that we will have to therefore have lots of cases before we actually know what this law is going to do - whether it's going to have an effect? MURPHY Well it's a very useful word, I mean legal draftsmen use it all the time because they can't define what is or is not reasonable in any given case. WHITE And what's your impression? It's been - these laws have been in place now for three months has the world changed? MURPHY Well I have some - some of my clients believe that this part M is like the 11th commandment, unfortunately I think you really have to know that part M - it deals with disabled access and I'm afraid it's pretty basic requirements and it's quite possible to be compliant with part M without being accessible. WHITE Okay, by the sound of that the world hasn't changed. Joce Murphy thank you very much for the time being. Joce will be back a bit later on in the programme. Also with us Mik Scarlet who went down a local shopping street earlier this year for us and found great difficulty in getting access to many of the premises, although he did bring about some changes. We also welcome Steve Day, stand up comedian, 70% hearing loss. And Mik and Steve have you noticed any difference - I mean first of all Mik last time you were on this programme you said, with your tongue, I think, slightly in your cheek, that you were going to go around and sue everybody or at least anyone who you felt was not complying with the law. SCARLET Well to tell you the truth I can actually say that things have got worse. Since October I have been barred from venues, I have been treated in a way that I haven't actually witnessed since the early '80s, I have had hostility, I have had actual violence, I have actually had - one club I crawled down a flight of stairs, when I got to the bottom I was picked up, put in my chair and dragged to a corner where I was told that that is where I have to sit, now that the law has changed that's where I sit. I couldn't dance, I couldn't drink, I couldn't go to the toilet - that's it. WHITE So what's going on here? SCARLET Well it's basically a case of - everyone has realised that the word reasonable makes this law an absolute joke. It's a complete waste of legislation - it's a waste of paper. And it's been brought in by the government entirely and totally so that they can then start getting away with the abolition of the disability living allowance and removing our benefits and making us go to work. And it's as simple as that and I am so angry about it that I am actually considering starting up a revolutionary army and blowing these buildings up. WHITE It can't really be as simple as that because the law was introduced in 1995, when there was a Conservative government, so the idea of a long 10 year plot is perhaps a bit over the top. SCARLET Well it is a Conservative government wearing a different coloured shirt, isn't it really. WHITE Okay let me bring in Steve Day. From your own point of view, as a partially deaf person trying to get around the country, what have things been like for you? DAY Not really, the thing is that nobody really knows what the law means. I've been telling my audiences for the last three months that if they don't laugh at my jokes they're actually breaking the law. [LAUGHTER] WHITE In the sense that they're what discriminating against you? DAY That's right and the funny thing is it works though, that they seem to - oh are we really, ha ha ha. WHITE What about though from a practical point of view - the kind of things that in the past got in your way, unclear announcements, lack of amplifiers on bars and hotels and that kind of thing - have you seen any increase in these ...? DAY No and nor have I heard any increase really, the most important thing. The thing is that if you're - I'm about 70% dear, we've just heard, well sometimes I say I'm 75% just to add a bit of glamour but I haven't noticed any change because it's the sort of disability that people don't really think of - people would think more of wheelchairs and ramps and stuff like that. And the things I need are small things - I tend to - people in my group tend to slip through the cracks in the legislation. We need simple things and understanding and things like loops and so on - inductive loops - and you really don't find many of them across the country. WHITE Right and people have known about inductive loops ever since the original part of Part 3 came in, in 1999, indeed they knew about them before that. Are you saying that there's no real sign with all this publicity that they're becoming more common in buildings? DAY No, you tend to get them in some places - banks, for example, are very good. But then again banks is the places where you get the worse news and the places where you're least likely to want to hear anything. Just trying to order something though in a burger bar, for example, that sort of thing, is just - I don't use - I don't go in there, I don't spend my money in there. Inductive loops are not expensive and if they put the investment in I'd go in there and buy their stuff but I don't because I can't order stuff, it gets difficult. WHITE Okay, Steve Day, Mik Scarlet thank you very much for the time being. Again they will be with us a bit later on. Carolyn. ATKINSON Now here are just some of the newspaper headlines the Disability Discrimination Act has prompted over the last couple of years, read by Radio 4's Chris Aldridge. NEWS HEADLINES Nuns must find 짙400,000 for disabled access or close shrine at Tyburn. One of Britain's most important ... Loo closures debated by council. A Cornish council is considering plans to close ... New law shock for companies. At least one company in North Devon will lose a massive amount of money by falling foul of strict new disabled access laws .... ATKINSON Now one of the places reported as being under threat of closure there was the Tyburn Convent in Central London which commemorates the site where Catholic martyrs were hung, drawn and quartered. So three months on have the headlines come true and has this inaccessible building been forced to close? I went to see Mother Simeon who took me into the holy crypt. SINGING MOTHER SIMEON I'm going to take you down these stairs now and this is the area that's going to be affected mostly when the disabled access is built in because please God no one will have to be coming these stairs anymore. These are some of the relics - they've come directly from the martyrs at their execution and we have pilgrims come from all over the world, all the year round, to come to honour the martyrs. SINGING ATKINSON Now back in June there were a number of newspaper reports and I could perhaps read you some of the headlines saying: One of Britain's most important Roman Catholic shrines faces closure. The Benedictine nuns at Tyburn Convent in Central London have until October 1st to find the funds to comply with new disability laws. Now are you in danger of closing? Are you about to shut down? MOTHER SIMEON We're not in danger of closing and we're certainly not about to shut down. Somewhere along the way, I think to catch people's attention, was a headline, a little bit of exaggeration came into it, saying that we would close down. We're not being forced into having this disabled access made by any law but because for many years we've been aware that some people haven't been able to come down to the crypt or even into the chapel above we've wanted to be able to do something and when we heard a couple of years ago that this new law was going to come into effect although we looked into it and we were informed that it didn't apply to us as such, because we're not a public building like a hospital or a school or a nursing home and so on, we did think that now was the time when we should make the effort to make this access available because so many people all over the world are working at making access for everybody, especially those who are not so able. SINGING ATKINSON So far from shutting down you're actually now fundraising and you're trying to raise about 짙400,000 to pay for the access? MOTHER SIMEON So far we've raised, with the help of very many generous people, 짙150,000 approximately. ATKINSON Is it worth it? MOTHER SIMEON I think it's worth it certainly to make the building accessible to as many people as possible. ATKINSON There was one person at the time who was quoted as saying: "It's not just absurd but immoral for a government to pretend to compensate for the physical disabilities of some by in effect imposing massive financial disabilities upon others". Now you're the one suffering this massive financial disability - what do you say to that? MOTHER SIMEON We don't feel that we're having a massive financial disability forced upon us, we want to do it for the good of people, so that they can come. We do have one friend of the community who's patiently been waiting many years - she's bed bound and she has to lie flat on a bed and she says that she will be the first person to use this disabled access as soon as we can have it done. So I hope she lives to see the day. SINGING ATKINSON The experience at the Tyburn Convent there. Well back in 2002 the Today programme reported on the potential fate awaiting Britain's village halls, once the Disability Discrimination Act came in. TODAY CLIP The new Disability Discrimination Act comes into force in 2004 and by the law of unintended consequences I suppose it seems it could force many of our village halls to close. Communities don't have enough money to upgrade their village halls in line with the Act's requirements. A group of toddlers runs around in their twice weekly session here at Maldon Village Hall. It's a large wooden building surrounded by a green and dominates this part of the village. But it might not be open for much longer. A particular concern is the new Disability Discrimination Act, which becomes law in 2004, and means the halls should be fully accessible to those in wheelchairs. In some cases this will cost villages thousands of pounds and although there are grants available for specific projects none cover this. For many this will be the final straw. ATKINSON So what has been its fate? Well we tracked down village hall committee chairman Mike Richardson in Bedfordshire and asked: Has it shut down? RICHARDSON We haven't shut down, no not at all, we're still very much going. The hall is used virtually everyday, it's used by the local toddler group, an art class, there's a McIntyre School, which is actually a disabled school, they come once a week and they find it suitable. ATKINSON So what have you actually done? RICHARDSON We've provided a ramp for disabled access and we've adapted the toilets so that they are suitable for disabled people to use. ATKINSON How much has that cost you? RICHARDSON I guess something in the region of about 짙2,000. ATKINSON And what do you make of the headlines that were banded around a couple of years ago? RICHARDSON I think they were maybe hyped up a bit at the time. ATKINSON And your verdict on the situation now is what exactly? RICHARDSON If you give it a go and you actually look at the Act there are ways around it, or working with it. WHITE So lots of buildings that haven't actually closed. So were the businesses and organisations unnecessarily fearful of the consequences of the Act and if they were does that mean the law wasn't tough enough in the first place - as Mik Scarlet perhaps suggested earlier on? Well joining me is Councillor Chris Clarke of the Local Government Association, which represents local authorities and Nick Goulding from the Forum for Private Business, which speaks for 25,000 small and medium sized businesses. Nick, if I can start with you. Did business perhaps deliberately exaggerate the implications of the Act to their members? GOULDING No I think it's rather the other way round. The scaremongering has come from the press and from numbers of the disabled groups who I don't think have really helped themselves - if I listen to some of Mik's comments earlier on - it's precisely that sort of attitude which encourages a less positive approach and I think that to a certain extent ... SCARLET We're less positive because of people barring us from places. I am not going to sit here and let you say things like that to me - it's your businesses that are being violent towards me now. I've been in a chair 20 years and the first time I've ever been manhandled down a flight of stairs by someone was after the Act not before. WHITE I will give you - Mik - a chance to come back but I do want to hear how the businesses and local authorities how they see this. GOULDING No one is encouraging manhandling or indeed anything other than the best possible service to customers because that's what businesses is about - it's serving their customers. And it's producing a practical solution for the real customers of individual businesses. WHITE But we did hear a lot of people say they would have to close down and some businesses said it as well - it wasn't just organisations, it wasn't just village halls. GOULDING Well that was a result of what they were being told - that there were people going to be going round suing them at the drop of a hat, that there were all sorts of requirements that actually aren't there in the Act. The reasonable provision is absolutely right and it's what it ought to be. Of course we should be trying to improve the facilities and the access for individuals who wish to use appropriate services where it's practical and that's what businesses should be setting about doing. And in fact are where it is practical. WHITE Let me bring in Councillor Chris Clarke, who represents local authorities, the organisation does. What powers do local authorities actually have to ensure the implementation of the Act? CLARKE Well they have responsibilities and I thought the reactions that you got from a couple of years ago possibly reflected a view that this is the heavy hand of the state intervening and pressurising. I'd have to say, as deputy chair of the Local Government Association, I'd be disappointed with any council that started from there. I think a council ought to start from the viewpoint that providing equal access as far as is practical and reasonable to any citizen ought to be their aim. Because being an inclusive society is the ambition we all ought to be pursuing. And what some of your comments are reflecting that once people got down to deal with this issue they found it is often capable of resolution. Now they're clearly - because I know you're particularly interested in the physical dimensions of the legislation - clearly there are some buildings where making changes, because they were built two or three hundred years ago, might be very difficult and impractical. Interestingly I'm in a council today where they've decided to stop using a particular building because it cannot be capable of - made easily accessible and properly accessible and I think Mik is quite right to demand that as a citizen. So what they're going to do is move those services into a different location which can be made easily open and accessible. And I think that's the kind of decision that councils have to make. WHITE Right well what often happens, what some of the confusion here seems to be about exactly who has the, as it were, the right of way when it comes to this kind of legislation and people sometimes feel they're getting mixed messages. Mukash Patel [phon.] is certainly confused, he thought he was doing the right thing when he had a ramp built outside his convenience store in Southampton but he's now been told to remove it. Well I went to see him and his shop over the weekend and he told me about the offending ramp. PATEL I did it by myself with a builder who provide the railings and the concrete. But since these new regulations came out someone's complained about the access to the ramp - they couldn't come in with the wheelchair, so they've reported to the council and the council returned back for me to remove it because it's not been planned for. WHITE What's the problem with it for wheelchairs? I've just walked up it - it is quite steep isn't it. PATEL It is very steep, yes. WHITE Who essentially did you think it was for? PATEL It was for the people with walking sticks and people with buggies with children as well to climb up a much easier and better way than with steps. But no way can we provide an access for the wheelchair people coming up. Planning was refused again after the complaint was made so I put in for planning but they said there's no space for it. WHITE So if you had, as it were, a shallower incline then it would go out too far into the road. PATEL Too far - definitely too far in the road and there's no way they could plan that for me and there's no other way I can provide an access for people with wheelchairs. But if I kept the ramp as it is it still provides a service for customers to walk in up the ramp with the children as well. WHITE What would you do for your wheelchair customers? PATEL I will provide a service like say put a doorbell outside for them to sort of ring for service or probably if they would like to phone up the shop and I could provide a delivery service which is no problem at all. WHITE How do you feel about this having made the effort to put this in yourself? PATEL I'm very frustrated about this - they asked me to remove this but there's nothing I can do against the council's decisions. WHITE But you are appealing I think. PATEL I am appealing again, [indistinct words] as well and asked them to sort of - if I can keep the ramp as it is and provide another way of service for disabled customers with the wheelchairs. WHITE That's Mukash Patel. Well I have been to the shop and I can confirm it is quite a steep incline, that wheelchair, and as he said if you went any further out into the road he would actually be out amongst the traffic, so that does create a problem. The city council say that they applaud him for having tried to do it but it simply fails the planning test and they've offered him the opportunity to apply for planning permission for a new ramp which he's not yet done. Chris Clarke though isn't this all a bit confusing - here's a man trying to do his best, he took the initiative to do it and he's got himself into trouble? CLARKE I think it's really sad because you can tell his sincerity in the way he's approached it and to find himself, if you like, between the devil and the deep blue sea it must be frustrating. It is worth mentioning there is a defence law of reasonableness and the legislation related to access enables somebody to go to court and challenge that the council isn't making access available when it would be reasonable to do so and I think the retailer could use that defence. But what is attractive about the way he tells his story, he doesn't seem to me to be in that game, he seems to be in the game of trying to find the best solution he can and you do need a little bit of goodwill. I mean it's very difficult - I need to choose next words now carefully because I don't know the council and I don't know the circumstances - I feel it would be a nice gesture if they could say look this has gone a bit wrong and you're out of pocket can we sit round the table and try and find a solution where you can meet your obvious intention to enable access to your customers and we can find how we might be able to cooperate with you to enable that to happen and leave you not too much out of pocket? WHITE Part of the problem here does seem to be though competing interests - health and safety, planning, the businesses themselves - I just want to put to Nick Goulding - what do you think is the solution to the fact where you've got various people who will say that they've got an interest in how this is done? GOULDING Well we face this problem of conflict in a whole range of areas, you also see it between fire regulations and planning for example. What we'd like to see is greater integration in the application of those regulations. I have to say as far as Mr Patel is concerned he shows exactly what I'd say is the right approach and the approach that most business owners want to do which is trying to find a practical solution to the actual problems that his customers are facing and litigation is the very last way that anyone should be talking about either from the business owner or from anyone else. And I think that the approach that he's suggested - either putting in for more planning permission for an alternative style of ramp or the delivery service or the bell at the door - are all sensible ways forward. WHITE One of the arguments often used is that buildings can't be adapted because of their historic interest. Well Carolyn has also been to the Wellington Arch on Hyde Park Corner in London where she met Paul Griffiths of English Heritage. GRIFFITHS The Wellington Arch was built between 1836 and 1840 to be the front entrance to Buckingham Palace. The royal road runs through the centre of the arch, so whenever Her Majesty the Queen leaves central London she will go through the arch. Also serving as London's smallest police station from 1840 to 1962. Let's have a look round the arch and we can show you some of the things that we've done here to make the arch accessible to all. ATKINSON Lead the way. GRIFFITHS The counter here is specifically lowered so a wheelchair user would come in through our front entrance. There's also a hearing loop there as well. We're going into the lift now which is actually the access point for all visitors into the arch. And the Braille lift, so visually impaired users to can work their way up to the third floor. We have a platform lift to get you up to the balconies to see the views and we have a number of reconstruction models of the Quadriga - which is the fantastic sculpture that adorns the top of the Wellington Arch, the largest bronze sculpture in Britain, weighing 39 tons. And we have a number of reconstruction models of that which enable visually impaired users to feel the sculpture and get an idea for what the sculpture would be like. ATKINSON Now Russell Walters you're in charge of making English Heritage buildings accessible. To people who say a listed building can't be adapted, historical monuments can't be touched, and it's really generally either incredibly expensive or impossible to actually make buildings like this accessible what do you say to people who would suggest that is the situation? WALTERS There's a great misconception that if you have a historic building, if it's listed, that you can't make it accessible. In fact, in our experience, virtually any listed building can be made accessible. People perceive listing as putting a building into aspic, it isn't, it's about managing the change process for that building. ATKINSON But you do hear a lot that people say - oh English Heritage won't let us do this - or - oh it's listed we can't do that. WALTERS We, as an organisation, can find it quite exasperating at times because it's an excuse that is being used, they don't actually want to do anything because it's going to cost money and they don't understand the benefits it will bring to their business. WHITE Carolyn's report from the Wellington Arch. I just want to go very quickly back to Mik Scarlet because there are examples there of people who are doing things, you characterised the world at the beginning almost as nobody doing anything at all. SCARLET Well I think the thing is that I'm probably at my rantiest best today because obviously this has only happened recently with my kind of bad experiences. But I think that yeah there are loads of people trying and I think that one of the problems we face is the fact that too many people envisage this kind of bulldozer attitude - that they were going to need to knock everything down and ramp and lifts - and that's not the answer, the answer is that there are ways of making services accessible to us that don't involve destroying buildings, that are just letting us gain access. And it's just the idea that we're people too, we want to have the right to do everything that everyone else does without being made to feel like we're asking for something really special. WHITE Thank you very much. And my thanks to Nick Goulding and Chris Clarke. Carolyn. ATKINSON You're listening to a special edition of You and Yours on the new disability access laws with Carolyn Atkinson and Peter White. The time is 1232 and in the next half hour we'll hear about the building that has closed due to the new law and we'll be talking to the government minister Maria Eagle. If you want to contact us about any item or let us know your views you can call us on 0800 044 044, write to Broadcasting House, London W1A 1AA or visit our website - bbc.co.uk/radio4. WHITE Now is anyone actually using this new law to force change and what are the difficulties involved if you try to do so? The answer is not many, Carolyn - who's been very busy in the last few weeks - has been to Bristol where one man's less than happy with the shopping and leisure experiences that he's having and it's now prompted him to take on two of the country's biggest high street names. Following strict guidelines drawn up by the Disability Rights Commission to help disabled people to use legal action through the courts he corresponded with River Island and the Odeon - the cinema chain - to find out if and when the companies would make changes to their premises. ATKINSON Well I'm in the Broad Mead part of Bristol with Chris Goddard who is a wheelchair user, who's also a customer of a number of shops around here, but he's trying to be a customer of River Island and basically not getting very far. Chris what's your experience been with River Island? GODDARD Well in recent months, I did go along there about three months ago and tried to buy some clothes in there but the men's department is upstairs, so the guys - they were very, very helpful - he asked me what shirt I wanted, I tried to sort of give an indication of colour and size and whatever, he came down with a shirt and then pointed me in the direction of a cupboard to try it on because the changing rooms were actually down some more stairs. ATKINSON When you say a cupboard, this was a wheelchair user's changing room? GODDARD No it was a cupboard. I've been in worse cupboards but it was a cupboard. My initial reaction was I just thought it was so funny but when I thought about it afterwards I thought that is so not on, it's quite humiliating really, so I felt very self-conscious and I felt that I'm not getting equal treatment really. It's not like going into a greengrocer's and you know that you want a pint of milk or a tin of beans and you can point to it and say please would you pass me that - that's what I want. Clothes, records, books, all sorts of things, are things that we need to spend time looking at, browsing, thinking, umming and ahhing and maybe not even buying in the end, that's shopping. ATKINSON Now you've obviously had this experience and you then entered into correspondence with River Island. What's your experience been so far? GODDARD Well I contacted head office in London and spoke to a customer service advisor - that was on the 22nd November - a couple of days later the guy that I spoke to sent me an e-mail saying that he will give it to the Health and Safety who "will reply directly to you". I've got a whole load more e-mails but unfortunately they're all mine, it's all one-way traffic here, I've heard nothing back from anybody at River Island. I've sent them what - you can see here there's six, seven e-mails, they're not responding to me, nothing so far. ATKINSON Here we are outside the Odeon and we're greeted with a large flight of steps, so that is obviously the first problem. GODDARD Well there's a flight of stairs - they're wide stairs, so there's plenty of room to put a platform lift by the way but there is a flight of stairs, straight flight, that goes to the box office where I think Polar Express has just opened, which I'm determined to go and see, but sadly not at this cinema because I can't get into it. And I was recently visiting their website so I know that they are the largest chain of cinemas in the country, they show a million performances a year, that's loads of popcorn, but unfortunately I'll have to go to London or Bath or Birmingham or somewhere else to see a film at the Odeon. ATKINSON Now you've also been in correspondence with them and in your file of e-mails and letters what response have you had? GODDARD Well I've had more response from them than River Island to be fair, they have made a lot of efforts in a lot of their cinemas throughout the country. But that doesn't really help me, I mean I live in Bristol and in fact I live about 400 yards away from this cinema. This is the cinema that I would actually come and patronise, so I've decided that I will start a legal process. I'm going to go along to the county court now, it's just up the road here, so I'm going to stop by there and just see what I have to do, I don't actually know, I've never done this before so I don't know how far I'll get today but I'll start. WHITE Well at the time of that recording Chris had heard nothing from River Island's customer services department since the end of November and he felt he was getting nowhere fast with the Odeon. So he gave them a deadline of December 13th, that came and went with still no hope of a shirt or a movie. That prompted Chris to become one of the very first people in the country to take the initial step along the legal road. He started by calling into the county court to pick up what they call an N1 form. ACTUALITY - COUNTY COURT GODDARD Can you help me please? I'm thinking about issuing a claim under the Disability Discrimination Act and I'm not sure of the process but I think I need a form N1. CLERK N1 - that's fine. Yeah let me just get you all the information. GODDARD Thank you. CLERK Okay that's the claim form. You need to complete the claim form in triplicate. GODDARD Right. CLERK Okay, there's your notes of guidance there telling you how to complete the claim form. GODDARD Right. CLERK Okay. There's usually a fee payable. GODDARD When you say there's a fee payable, at which stage? CLERK When you bring - when you complete the claim form and return it to the court - whether you send it in or whether you bring it back into the court there would be a fee payable at that stage. GODDARD Right, okay. CLERK And that would be dependent on how much you're claiming. GODDARD Oh right, so when you put a claim in I actually have to claim like a specific amount. CLERK A specific sum yeah. GODDARD Oh right okay. CLERK So say for example it's compensation, if you're claiming up to 짙5,000 you'd be liable for a court fee of 짙120. GODDARD Okay what if I'm not really claiming any money? This is confusing because I mean I'm very happy to be awarded vast damages for nothing but for me it's not an issue of the money, it's an issue of trying to make businesses just make themselves accessible. CLERK You might complete a Part 8 claim form. But the problem is we wouldn't be able to give you any legal advice here you'd have to actually ... GODDARD Okay. CLERK ... independent legal advice to advice you on that. GODDARD Okay. Well I think what I'll do then is I'll go down this route because that's what recommended that you do. ATKINSON We've got the Disability Rights Commission guidelines here and they say get the N1 form don't they? GODDARD That's what they say yeah. So I'll go for an N1 form please. And then see how far that gets me. ATKINSON So you've just done the first stage of taking some legal action against River Island and Odeon. We're now outside Bristol County Court, what's your feeling about the beginning of this process? GODDARD It does look confusing and complicated and I can't see an awful lot of people feeling sort of emboldened enough and having the time and energy to go through this frankly. ATKINSON Because I mean you've taken today off work to actually to do this. GODDARD I've taken today off work, I work in the disability field anyway - at the Disabled Living Centre in Bristol - and I know my way around a little bit but this is going to be - I mean this could be a full time job if I wanted to get some redress here. ATKINSON Do you feel that waving this sort of N1 form in your hand with a bit of legal power might actually make some of the stores think twice? GODDARD Well I'd be very surprised if in the short time it makes the Odeon sort of sit up and actually take any action, even then by the time it does I guess we'll be on Polar Express 10 or something - the remake. But hopefully yes, hopefully they'll take me seriously because River Island, for example, just aren't talking to me. So if I say I've been to the court I've got the N1 maybe that will shake them up a little bit, whether it'll make them put a stair lift in so that I can buy that shirt who knows? ATKINSON Now we of course did ask both River Island and Odeon for their response. River Island told us: "With differing configurations and ages of the shops we occupy accessibility will vary. Our Broad Mead Bristol shop is one of our older stores, it's not the easier for disabled customers to access the first floor, consequently our staff are aware of the need to assist customers such as Mr Goddard by bringing products downstairs. We have a nationwide programme in hand reviewing in particular all our stores where there is trading on two floors and at Bristol we do have a lift which is for use for goods purposes." Now there could be some good news for Chris Goddard here because River Island go on to say: "We're presently assessing the suitability of that goods lift for use by wheelchair users, we're hoping to find a reasonable solution in this." And they also point out they have a flexible returns policy should any item prove to be unsuitable after customers have taken it home. Now the Odeon told us: Currently there is wheelchair access is over 88% of Odeon cinemas, there are also induction loops for hard of hearing customers in all Odeon screens. Odeon's the leader, they say, in installing audio description and subtitled film equipment and has installed more of these units than any other cinema operator. It works closely with disabled working groups and access audits have been carried out at all cinemas that they own over the past five years, including the Odeon in Bristol that we were talking about. They say: "We're aware of the limited access in certain sites like Odeon Bristol and we're continuing to work with organisations representing disabled people in order to find an effective and lasting solution to this issue." WHITE Carolyn, thank you very much indeed. Well Joce Murphy is still with us of the Disability Law Service. What do you make of Chris Goddard's experiences and what you've heard so far? MURPHY There are going to be changes with regard to the lack of response he's been getting from the service providers ... WHITE Yeah because that's the key thing here isn't it - both River Island and Odeon have said all sorts of good things that they're doing but they didn't say them to him. MURPHY In about 2006 there will be introduced a questionnaire that will be available for disabled users. This questionnaire is at the moment available to disabled employees to issue to their employers. This demands a response within a time limit so as I say it can be used - there will be adverse inferences made if they ignore your requests or any correspondence, they cannot ignore this questionnaire, but that's someway down the road. The lack of a questionnaire also means that very few service users are able to test the strength of their case because a lot of them don't know why the service provider isn't doing anything. And the reason a lot of the DDA cases - Part 3 DDA cases - don't hang on are we arguing about have you been adversely treated but in fact it really - the argument is why they have done this and the justifications that service providers are using. Without the questionnaire you're not going to know the answer to that until you've issued an N1. WHITE Okay, so what advice do you give - say people have gone through - clearly your first advice would be try to get some sense out of the company and then try to get a settlement because no one wants to go to court just for the hell of it. But if you've got beyond that stage what advice do you give to people in how to bring a case and how to get a result? MURPHY Many users who have never used the county court before tend to gen up on what a claimant can do. What you really need to do is look up what defendants are able to do as well. This is fairly - I mean the rules aren't complicated, it's just that there are a lot of them. There's one - it's supposed to ensure fairness for all parties. So look up the rights of claimants as well as the rights of the defendants. What brings in a further element ... WHITE You mean if you know what your claimant can do you know how may be to counter it? MURPHY Exactly you do need - it's backwards and forwards. And also what brings a certain element of uncertainty into the proceedings is that judges do have wide powers of case management. And of course different judges have different ways of managing cases. WHITE Right, well Joce Murphy thank you very much indeed for that. Today the disability charity Scope launches a campaign which it's calling Access to Justice. Their campaigns officer, Paul May, is with us. So what are you calling for? MAY We're calling for in the long term equality tribunals to be set up. I mean the fact is that very few cases are getting to court, just mentioned earlier that until we get cases in court we can't know what the word reasonable means. The government's own research shows that less than 15 cases get to court on goods and services each year. In the long term we'd like to see tribunals along the lines of employment tribunals looking - and with the power to hear these cases. In the short term Mr Goddard will find, as he goes further, that he won't be able to get legal aid, it's almost never available in these cases. And we want the government to look at providing better assistance because for the very simple reason we would say what's the point of having all these laws if they can't be enforced? WHITE And what evidence do you have as far as the level of enforcement and the number of cases that are being brought? MAY Last year the Disability Rights Commission they have a help line took 40,000 calls about goods and services, not all of them from disabled people, some of them from businesses wanting to know how they could comply with the law, but 40,000 calls resulting in 15 cases, mostly in the county courts, we would say there's an overwhelming case. That's why, as part of our Trying to Get Equal campaign we're launching a campaign around the issue of enforceability. We spend a lot of time talking about what the law ought to be, we spend far too little time discussing whether these rights mean anything for disabled people. WHITE Let me bring in Mik Scarlet, because you did talk about enforcing cases, bringing cases, did you actually ever look into bringing one, I mean you've come on here and had a good complain but ...? SCARLET Yeah I must admit I probably will. I think the thing is that I hoped that the goodwill that I've always experienced before the law came in would have carried on, it didn't, so I probably will be yes. WHITE Okay, I just wanted to establish that. Thank you both very much indeed. Carolyn. ATKINSON Are there any places in the country that have closed down due to the arrival of the Disability Discrimination Act? As we've been hearing a lot of those headlines have been scaremongering but in fact Kirklees Council has told us that it is in fact shutting down three of its neighbourhood housing offices because it reckons the cost of complying with the DDA is too high. They wouldn't go public on what the estimated bill would be to do the work but Councillor Andrew Cooper told me they'd be replacing the offices with phone lines and with more home visits, which in his view will make their service more accessible not less. COOPER It's not like closing a bank, if you close a bank branch somebody has to necessarily go somewhere else, your bank manager doesn't come to your home, your bank manager doesn't come to the village hall near where you live. So we're actually not using the Disability Discrimination Act as an excuse but actually looking at it as one of the drivers we've got in fact of looking at how we deliver services differently. Why don't we free staff up who are tied up in offices, actually to go out into people's homes and provide a better service in that way? WHITE So there are some things that have closed. Let me go to Steve Day. Steve, give us more of a picture of what it's like. You made a visit for us didn't you to Paddington Station to indicate the sort of problems that you came across. What are the major ones that you encounter? DAY Train stations are a real big problem area because not only are they trying to buy a ticket and actually getting on the train - the practicalities - it's also all the other shops and that around the concourse because you're there for hours anyway waiting for your train, which is normally late, and there's so many things to trip you up. First of all, buying a ticket. They have loop systems installed but the one we tried just didn't work. And the man had to kind of lean forward - the ticket seller - into this kind of contortionist position to actually speak through the microphone so I could hear him ... WHITE And they're inaudible to anyone almost, you must have enormous difficulties, but I've got good hearing and I have bend forward to hear anything going on there. DAY It's a double nightmare because - especially at Paddington where some of the trains divide in half and you end up going - and you don't hear the announcement that says that and I ended up going to Didcot once instead of Oxford, which is no disrespect to the town of Didcot but I just didn't want to go there. And I was due to be on at [name] in Oxford and ended up in Didcot thinking how the hell do I get home from here. WHITE Are you the litigious kind - I mean what do you do when you encounter these problems, do you just shrug and let it go or are you the kind of person who might be forced to remonstrate with them and even take them to court? DAY But the thing is I just haven't got the energy for every time it happens to get mad about it, it just happens so much, it's just so frustrating. So what you do in the end is just to go home or just try and forget about it - buy stuff on the internet, don't go anywhere, which is basically the easiest way to get round the problem. I sympathise with Mik because the retail man has just gone and had a bit of a lie down I think but 15 cases they face every year is nothing compared to if you spent one afternoon facing the frustration that you do trying to get anywhere and anything he would know, he would know that it's really just a small investment would make life so much better for more people. WHITE Mik Scarlet, there have been thousands, there must have now been conferences, seminars, about this, people do know that these things are happening and I meet a lot of people who declare their intention to do their best and yet you've come up with this very angry response. Now let's keep it reasonable, you're not going to go round blowing up buildings, you're not - you're not - what do you want - seriously - what do you want done? SCARLET I'll tell you what it is, I think the reason why I probably am quite so cross today is because I am absolutely gobsmacked that yet again I am here, I've been disabled now for nearly 40 years and I am still having to argue the point about whether or not it is our right to go and buy a shirt, get a ticket at a railway station, see a film where you want to do it. Why is it so difficult for everyone to understand that it is - we've had enough - I am sick - by the time the world is accessible I'll be too old to go out and do it anyway. And it's mad to think that there are people that can argue - oh we can't afford it, or, it's very difficult. We're the life - we live this life, we're the ones that are barred from doing things. I mean if we can't get legal aid to take this to court it's a complete waste of a law. WHITE So are you saying actually that the law is too weak or are you saying it's too difficult to access the law as it stands at the moment? SCARLET It's both - it needs to be one, an act against the state to discriminate against a disabled person should be an act against the state and not ... WHITE So you're saying it should be criminal rather than civil. SCARLET Yes exactly. WHITE Can I just ask Paul May quickly, is that something that you would want as part of your campaign? MAY I think what we want is that the law be enforced. We had a campaign recently called Free to Pee around leisure venues and we found on the 1st October 80% of venues were in apparent breach of the law. Whether it should be criminal or civil is possibly a debate for another day. The law's here and now we want it enforced here and now. WHITE Okay. Steve Day, final comment perhaps on what you'd like to see - calm man that you are? DAY I'm calm because I'm just resigned to it. I'd like to see people make more of an effort to think that oh no it's not something bad, it's something good - companies can make more money because disabled people would spend money in their premises, they don't want our money at the moment so I'm not going to spend money there. I'd just like to see people have more thought put in to their process, not whether it's profit or loss situation. WHITE Okay. Well Maria Eagle, the Minister for Disabled People, has heard the end of that discussion, quite a lot went beforehand. EAGLE I heard all of it actually. WHITE Yeah good, well that's good. The first question I'd like to ask you is really about the law itself. Doesn't the law need to be clearer about which interests take precedence - safety, we've heard planning, heritage or maybe the rights of disabled people - it does seem that there are an awful lot of people queuing up for their rights in this law? EAGLE Well I think with the new bill, which is going through Parliament at the moment, which places obligations on the public sector to promote equality of opportunity and which extends the law to cover all functions of public authorities, we'll be seeing the Disability Discrimination Act becoming more important than some of the other areas of law because additional obligations are going to be placed on public authorities, that includes councils, it includes planning authorities - all of these organisations - to make sure they don't discriminate in the way they perform their services and functions. And so I think you will gradually see the anti-discrimination law having greater precedence. WHITE So would you accept that given the small number of cases which have been brought and Paul May mentioned 15 cases after 40,000 calls on Part 3, that was before October, but doesn't that suggest that the law isn't really - isn't working? EAGLE Well not necessarily, not every case has to end up in court. WHITE Sure but 15 out of 40,000 does make you wonder. EAGLE Well I mean I think it's obviously up to individuals whether they want to go that far. They can quite often get redress short of having to take court cases. I mean let's admit it - having to go to court over something like that is a sort of sign of failure all round really - by society, by those who are being sued - and it puts the disabled person who just wants to get out and live their lives into a difficult position to have to go through all that process to get a simple basic right. So... WHITE But Mik Scarlet's suggesting it's worse since October, he's anecdotal experience is that it's far from better, he's had more manhandling and more trouble. EAGLE Well I heard what Mik said and I'm not going to say that he was wrong to say that's experience and he's the wheelchair user not me and so I respect his experience and what he's said about it. I can assure him that there's no intention to make things worse, the intention of all this is to improve things. He's had a bad experience. I think one response of those who perhaps aren't very positive about this to being required to do better can sometimes be an adverse response, I hope that that will not be common and that it won't be extended into the future. We're going on a journey, we're taking the whole of society with us here, we have to do that if this is going to come right in the end. We have to make sure everybody is aware that disabled people just want what everyone has got and it's our intention to make sure that they get it. Now in order to do that we've got to take the whole of society with us, not just put in laws that require it and then not do anything about it. So we've got a big awareness raising mission to carry out. And that means for non-disabled people, as well as for disabled people. WHITE Can I ask you specifically about the idea of tribunals, that Paul May is calling for, that Scope is calling for? EAGLE Well there are already tribunals and courts that people can go to. I mean I'm certainly always happy to listen to what campaigning organisations like Scope and particularly organisations of disabled people have got to say about this and to consider it. I mean I don't think that the issue with services cases is about the forum in which the case might be taken, I think it's more about the fact that people aren't willing to go to all that trouble over not being able to get a shirt in the main, they put it down to experience. Now I think we can do at least as much by persuading the non-disabled community and the business community of the sense of trying to tap into the 짙80 billion that disabled people have got to spend. We can actually get further as a society by persuading people it's the right thing to do than by trying to do everything through court cases. You have to have a mixture and people have to have a right to go to court if they wish to and they've now got that. But we're actually going to advance further by persuasion. WHITE Okay. So quick final comments from Steve Day and Mik Scarlet. Steve Day, it almost sounds though if you want change you've got to stop shrugging and take direct action. DAY If you stop shrugging and then take direct action people say oh you're just a moaning load of disabled people, we're not going to deal with you because you're unreasonable. SCARLET As everyone's calling me today. You know what I mean - it's like everyone's saying well Mik you're being really grumpy and yet of course I'm being really grumpy, I've been discriminated against all my life and now we get an equal rights law and I'm being discriminated against worse. EAGLE Well I didn't say you were being grumpy Mik, let me just make that ...[LAUGHTER] SCARLET You should see the faces in the studio - good god. WHITE Joce. MURPHY I'd just like to ask Maria Eagle, why has it not occurred to anybody to give wider powers to trading standards officers, so that they can police this? WHITE It'll have to be a one sentence answer Maria. EAGLE Well the trading standards and local authorities with the new legislation are going to have to show that they're promoting equality of opportunity for disabled people and I think that will be a big step forward. WHITE Okay many thanks to everyone who's taking part. Carolyn. ATKINSON That's all for today. Back to the Transcripts homepage Back to the You and Yours homepage The 91훑괵 is not responsible for external websites

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