North Wales MS and Chair of the Senedd Cross Party Group on Disability, Mark Isherwood, has again highlighted the problems disabled residents in North Wales are experiencing in applying for and obtaining Blue Badges, and called for an opportunity for Senedd Members to raise them directly with the Cabinet Secretary for Transport and North Wales so that the Welsh Government can respond to them in detail.
Speaking in yesterday’s meeting of the Welsh Parliament, Mr Isherwood, who in July spoke in the Chamber of the “grave inconsistencies, inefficiencies and injustices arising from the Welsh Government’s ‘Blue Badge Scheme in Wales guidance for local authorities’ ”, called for a Welsh Government Statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Transport and North Wales on Blue Badge Parking Permits, because, he said “people are being hurt”.
Raising the matter in the Business Statement, he said:
“They’re not being told that they can appeal by Local Authorities. When they come to Members of the Senedd and are told they can, and refer it, they’re then faced with a 15-page form that many struggle to deal with.
“During Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Housing, Local Government and Planning in July, I spoke of the grave inconsistencies, inefficiencies and the injustices arising from the Welsh Government’s ‘Blue Badge Scheme in Wales guidance for local authorities’, and referred to the Senedd Petition to ‘Make Blue Badge Applications Lifelong for Individuals who have a lifelong diagnosis’, submitted by STAND North Wales CIC, ‘Stronger Together for Additional Needs and Disabilities’, who told the Cross-Party Group on Disability that they had discovered through research ‘that local authorities were either unaware of lifetime awards, or had a different understanding of what it meant’.
“After meeting STAND North Wales earlier this month, when families discussed their experiences and expressed the significance of a lifetime award for them, the Civil Servant in the Cabinet Secretary for Transport’s Team with responsibility for Blue Badge Policy stated to them that he will now spend some time working through the issues that they raised, and discussing them with the Cabinet Secretary, so that the Welsh Government can respond in detail to them.
“But this critical issue merits more than that. It requires a Statement to the full Senedd, and an opportunity for Members across the Chamber to question the Cabinet Secretary regarding this.”
Responding, the Trefnydd said she would “draw this to the attention of the Cabinet Secretary for Transport and North Wales”.
She added: “Of course, he will also have his oral Senedd questions next week, so there's an opportunity to raise it there as well.”
Commenting afterwards, Mr Isherwood said:
“She knows full well that oral Senedd questions are a lottery and Members cannot simply raise questions of their choice”.