A policy of restricting access to York city centre for motorists with blue badges has been slammed as ‘disproportionate’ and a possible breach of human rights.
Disability rights campaigners are planning a legal challenge against York council over the restrictions placed on blue badge parking for people with disabilities on key streets in the city centre.
The council says the measures followed police advice on protecting the city against terrorism, but campaigners said it has turned the city into a ‘no go zone’ for many disabled people.
The study by postgraduate students at York Law School for the Reverse the Ban coalition accepts that the council has a responsibility to lower the risk of hostile vehicle attacks but says it is required to do so by using the ‘least restrictive means possible’.
A spokesperson for the Liberal Democrat group on the city council which runs the authority in coalition with the Greens said it had ‘concerns over the independence and factual accuracy of the report which has been commissioned by a campaign group’.
The spokesperson added: ‘There are a notable number of factual inaccuracies and lack of evidence on which broad assumptions and claims have been made.
‘Notably, no clear or evidence-based solutions as to different operation of the security barriers have been identified.’
