Corsham residents ban wheelchair users from dentist.

By 24/7 Taxis | Thursday, July 22, 2010, 13:53

Mean residents on a Corsham housing development have stopped wheelchair

1. Porters Mead. No way through.
3. Front entrance. No way through.

bound patients from visiting their own dentist on Pickwick Road over a

dispute over access.

For over 20 years wheelchair patients have

gained access to Mr Power’s dental surgery on Pickwick Road via his back

door as it is the only entrance suitable to place ramps for the

wheelchairs. The land was previously used as a garage workshop but has

since been developed into Porters Mead, a gated private housing

development which also encloses the rear entrance of the dental surgery.

The “access with

consent” remained until recently when the residents of Porters Mead

withdrew that consent. Mr Power’s wheelchair patients are now forced to

find another dentist with suitable access.

Taxi owner Michael Simpkins said "Access

through the front door of the surgery is totally impracticable as there

are too many steps to negotiate and in any case wheelchair accessible

vehicles also need space to the side to position the wheelchair ramp.

There is not room with the wall there. The best option was to park

across the entrance for a minute while we unload the wheelchair

passenger. It would be even easier if we were allowed through the gates

to unload but the residents won’t let us do that either. I once had a

confrontation with a snobby lady who wanted to drive in while I was

clearly unloading a wheelchair passenger. When I pointed out that the

passenger was in a wheelchair she responded. “I don’t care you are

blocking my entrance.”

Disabled people

face enough hardship and discrimination as it is without mean spirited

residents not allowing them to visit the same dentist they have been

seeing for years. What people fail to realise is that these people

didn’t ask to be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of their lives

and it can happen to anyone of us”.

Mr Simpkins, who is also a Town Councillor, is now campaigning for rights of access for all disabled people in Corsham and would be interested to hear from people who face similar access problems to public buildings, shops and banks etc.

Re-post Write a story

Ads by Google

Comments

It's good that people are so passionate in the community about making sure that everyone, regardless of ability, has access to vital care that they need. Be it the dentist or anything else. Thank you Porters_Mead residents for sharing your view on things - there are two sides to every story as everyone now knows.

That's what's good about this site - people can answer any allegations and give their own views.

I think we're all agreed the Dental Surgery should be providing access for disabled people, which they seem to be arranging from the comments below. It seemed a lot of us jumped to conclusions, wanting to speak out about injustice, but I apologise for any further stress to Porters Mead residents who it seems were judged unfairly.

By Endsleighdale at 14:14 on 30/07/10
Report
Porters_Mead. - Anonymous comments don't get posted on my blog, put a name to it and it might get posted. My blog - my rules. As for the political gain there was no mention of BNP on this article until you mentioned it and what has this got to do with politics anyway? Surely a person's disability goes beyond party politics although even the BNP has disabled members and voters. Would the story have carried any more weight if it had been posted by a councillor from any other party? Has a councillor from any other party bothered to do anything about it?

For the record I have only ever dropped off a wheelchair passenger twice so don't include me with the rest of the taxi drivers but I expect they were using your entrance to pull off the road to drop off and pick up. Pickwick Road isn't the best of places for that with parked cars the other side. A bit of patience and understanding is needed on all sides. People still need to see their dentist and some have to take a taxi.

As for the problem of wheelchairs and the surgery I am still making positive moves to resolve the situation which involves me buying a new taxi with rear access so I can load and unload on the road without parking across your entrance (I might have to block the road for a bit) and suggesting ways to the surgery to make their front door accessible. Then when I've finished with them I shall move on to more places in town that are inaccessible to wheelchairs and persuade them to do some alterations as well.

I will do this regardless of whether I am in the BNP, a town councillor or just Joe Public. It's just because I care.

You might find that last sentence hard to believe.

By 24/7 Taxis at 01:04 on 30/07/10
Report
Perhaps the 3 people who have made such abusive and upsetting comments about the residents of Porters Mead should not believe what they read in their papers as the gosple truth without first checking on the true facts which instigated our action !!!

Maybe like Ruby Roo they also might like to retract their unfriendly comments
.
Porters Mead resident.

By malcolmr at 20:40 on 29/07/10
Report
Thank you to the resident of Porters Mead for putting your point across. I think everyone now understands the situation so much better. I hope the access problem can be resolved for all.

By Medals at 17:51 on 29/07/10
Report
Having read the comments here, especially the one remarking upon the "repulsive behaviour" of the Porters Mead residents, I feel compelled to reply as one of the residents. I am appalled that fellow inhabitants of Corsham regard this article as the unequivocal truth, especially when it has been posted by a BNP Councillor for his own political gain, who incidentally has not posted my reply on his blog.

The following is an extract of a letter I have sent to the Editor of the Wiltshire Gazette and Herald:

"I am furious that you have painted myself and my fellow residents as wheel chair hating bigots. My son was profoundly disabled prior to his death and I find the article that you have published both offensive and disgusting.

What has been said is simply untrue. We have had numerous conversations with the dentist and raised our concerns over access by their clients via the rear of their premises. The access they enjoyed previously was an informal one with our consent. Our main concerns centre around the problems which have arisen from this access being abused.

Porters Mead is a private driveway which we are responsible for maintaining. We also have to pay for the electricity and upkeep of the gates via our management company. We chose to live here as we had a disabled son and two small daughters who we wanted to live in a safe protected environment away from the road.

Unfortunately some of the patients visiting the dentist have rammed into the gates and have become stuck causing a great deal of damage. This is damage that we have had to pay hundreds of pounds for. On five very recent occasions, residents have been unable to get into their own parking spaces and on two occasions they haven’t even been able to get through the gates due to obstructions caused by the dental patients. On four further occasions, taxi drivers when asked politely to move to let residents and bonafide visitors pass have given them a torrent of abuse and foul language. I myself have had one of the patients swear at me in front of my small daughters, and it is not acceptable. Only two weeks ago one of the resident’s young sons was physically threatened by a taxi driver when he politely asked him to move, which is what finally led to the consent being withdrawn as it was the last straw.

I challenge any one of the people reading your paper to say that they would act any differently faced with what has been happening here including Mr Everett the retired police officer who will be aware of the many offences involved.

Whilst I obviously have every sympathy with the disabled users I find it amazing that the true issue here is being ignored. The dental surgery has a responsibility under disability law to provide disabled access to their premises and they know this. We have discussed this with them at length as they had offered to pay us a small some of money in lieu of the damage caused by their clients to our property. We said that we would be happy for them to put that money towards a ramp, and we went away from the meeting believing that this is what would happen. Clearly it hasn’t, and I see no reason why a temporary ramp cannot be used on the very few occasions it is needed within a year.

So, you article has caused us a great deal of concern as they have now conveniently forgotten this conversation when talking to your reporter. If Mr Everett would like to come and discuss this issue with us we would be more than happy to do so. I realise this is a difficult situation but we have to consider the safety of the residents and particularly their children, and the only people that can sort this out are the dental practice themselves.
We have to live here; these are our homes."

By Porters_Mead at 15:41 on 29/07/10
Report