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Letter to the press - Equality in RCT means everyone is disadvantaged equally
August 11, 2011 8:03 PM
By Mike Powell
By Mike Powell
As reported in the Pontypridd Observer the much publicized revamp of Pontypridd's town centre has already been the subject of criticism after RCT Council decided to stray from the original plans and introduce an arbitrary 25mm lip along part of the pedestrian area.
My fellow Councillors and I received a number of queries from residents and traders who tripped over the mini kerbs and were complaining they were dangerous. I took the issue up with the group Director, including the fact that no change in plan had been notified to local members.
I was told that they had decided to introduce the lip to aid the visually impaired who would find it easier to determine where the 'pavement' started. He claimed that Guide Dogs also found them useful. However, when I took this up with various organisations representing those who are visually impaired and also with those representing wheelchair users I had a different story.
A representative from the Guide Dogs association stated that 25mm kerbs are not satisfactory and do not meet the requirements of the visually impaired. Disabled charity Scope told me that they are certainly not helpful for wheelchair users. So RCT Council managed to simultaneously disadvantage everyone likely to use the area.
I then received from the Director the following email:
"As you refer to in your email, there is a perceived 'tripping' issue in Mill St and having reviewed the current situation, we feel it necessary to remedy.
An urgent design team meeting was arranged to review the current situation and look at mitigation measures to address the perceived hazard. The resulting action is to remove the 25mm high kerb and replace it with a 300mm wide, white kerb laid at a slope of 1:12."
It goes on to say that the design team are confident this will remedy the problem. Yet they were surely confident that their actions in the first place were correct - or did they not carry out a sufficiently robust equality impact assessment or consult with relevant disabled groups?
I have a number of questions awaiting a response, which include queries as to who was responsible for the inclusion of the kerb in the first place and what will the cost of remedial work be and who is paying for it.
Cllr. Mike Powell
Welsh Liberal Democrat,
Trallwn Ward,
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