APPENDIX 8
Memorandum submitted by Mrs Bridget Nuttgens
1. Moving around Paris shortly before the
announcement of the Olympic bid convinced me that London hadn't
a chance. In comparison to London, the transport system—both
metro and buses—were smart, clean, on time, well-signed
and with provision for disability access on all buses. I know
Paris is smaller with fewer branch underground lines (if you get
on the right train you will go to the place you want to reach)
but the present opportunity to radically reform the transport
system within London should not be ignored.
2. I have seen very few improvements in
accessibility since the deadline on 1 October 2004 for implementation
of the Disability Discrimination Act of 1955 including Part V—Rail
Vehicle Accessibility Regulations. It would be iniquitous if no
improvements resulted from the money and new ideas that should
follow up our successful Olympic bid as part of the "Legacy"
Lord Coe made so much of. When my husband contracted polio in
1942 he was transferred from school in Leicestershire to an orthopaedic
hospital in Middlesex by stretcher in an unheated guards' van.
How much have facilities improved since those war days? I heard
recently of an independent traveller being ordered to disband
his regulation-sized scooter (a heavy job for anybody, impossible
for a disabled person) so that it could be packed out of his reach
in the guard's van while he transferred (Was he capable of doing
so?) to a train seat.
3. Going for Gold presents the House of
Commons Transport Committee with an opportunity to become European
pioneers in establishing a truly inclusive transport system in
UK. The present transport legislation which eg provides one disabled
place in each of First and Second Class is quite inadequate, and
I thought the squashy First-Class wheelchair space on the Eurotrain
very poor indeed. Older carriages may be difficult and expensive
to adapt, but there is no excuse for not making provision for
wheelchairs and scooters of the acceptable size in every new-built
carriage.
4. Accessibility across the board should
be established in the widest sense to include:
— not only transport of all sorts from
all parts of the country and abroad to the Olympic sites, but
transport from hotels/B&Bs/hostels for both competitors, supporters
and visitors to both sets of Games.
— complete accessibility within the
Olympic sites and within the above mentioned accommodation. There
is no point in arranging transport to London, if people cannot
get to beds, eating places, toilets and stadia seating where they
can sit alongside able-bodied or disabled relatives/friends/carers
etc. All facilities must be available to all. This country has
a reputation for design. Use our national talents!
— systems which can be left in place
not merely for the Games but for the future, in accordance with
Lord Coe's principle of "legacy" to the entire country.
5. If government policy were to take advantage
of the present opportunity provided by the Olympic/Paraplegic
Games, it could have far-reaching results in solving some of the
country's major problems.
— It would arouse the interest of the
young in athletics and sport, promoting physical health, giving
ideals and supplying heroes to emulate, so as to give positive
life-aims for those of non-academic talents or members of the
community who feel themselves to be depressed or under-valued.
Sports, like music, can have a unifying and vivifying effect akin
to religion likely to influence social disruption and petty crime.
— If mobility and access provision
were readily available not only to the disabled but to the increasing
number of the elderly in the community it would encourage independence
for them and promote the interests and activities that enhance
life. This is an essential factor in avoiding illness and depression,
both of which today put a burden of crisis-threatening proportions
on the Health and Social Services. Unfortunately present government
policies seem to be working in the opposite direction; we can
see the non-principle operating in the education sector where
wider extra mural learning is being down-graded and finances for
such classes increasingly limited to basic skills; and it is also
apparent in the government's past failure to provide for adequate
mobility to enable this sector of the community to play their
full part as citizens and contribute to the life of the country,
although people with a lifetime of experience behind them have
so much to give.
— Further: the demographic figures
that show 16% of the population to be over 65 and 20% under 15,
make it imperative that the top (and growing) 16% should be given
every help possible to live independent and active lives in the
community for the sake of the middle 50%. These percentages are
only bookends; as they stand, a bare 50% has
(b) bear and rear the children; and
(c) look after the elderly and infirm.
Under these conditions, how many of the 50%
will join those in the sick, depressed and demented categories
with the possible eventual result of a total breakdown of Health
and Social Services.
— Planning these improvements would
give the added bonus of opening up work areas in both design and
crafts.
CONCLUSION
The organisation and financing of the 2012 Games
provides the Government with an unprecedented opportunity not
only to tackle some of the severe problems facing it, but to create
a new and enhancing lifestyle for the country. Please allow people
of vision to raise their eyes and minds from the bottom line (even
in financial terms a short-lived policy) to a new future.
7 September 2005
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