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LIVERPOOL WHEELCHAIR USER GROUP
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LIVERPOOL WHEELCHAIR
USER GROUP (LWUG) A warm welcome to our LWUG website. LWUG is about together, being a stronger voice for wheelchair users throughout our City.Our Web site is- like life- always under development.
GETTING AROUND THE LWUG WEBSITE Please use the menus at the top right of each page, and list of subpages underneath to navigate the site. If you can't easily find it, let us know what information would be most useful to you, and most of all, what we can do to help you
Who are we?A group of wheelchair users started meeting together, determined to make a difference. LWUG has met regularly since 2004, has developed a Committee, Constitution, has successfully received grant funding most recently from a Grassroots Grant in 2009 and is applying for charitable status.
Did you know ? That already the NHS provides for over 12,000 wheelchair users in Liverpool. It now has more specialist wheelchair therapists and a bigger budget for meeting our needs than ever, spending over £1 million pounds in 2006!
So why LWUG? Much work has been done, but much more work has still to be done, to give us.......
It takes time, but with your support and your active help, LWUG aims include :We want to work towards further improvements to the customer care of services, to keep you in touch better, to widen the range of wheelchairs available and much more. We want to improve access to information for wheelchair users.We recognise the importance of the Social Model of Disability , the realisation that so many of the challenges and barriers still faced by disabled people come from inaccessible transport, houses, public buildings and amenities, as well as an underfunding of the health and social support services.We want to see far better access to public buildings, pavements, kerb crossings in Liverpool, easier to report and get changes. We want to promote better access to transport, including trains, buses, taxis, ‘Blue Badge’ parking, and Motability Schemes.
LATEST NEWS!June 2009 Rebuilding of Liverpool Royal Hospital At a cost of £470 million this may be needed but....LWUG is writing to Derek Campbell CEO Liverpool PCT concerned there is no provision for an access consultant to work closely with the architects to ensure it is inclusive. Just promising to meet Part M of Building Regs is not enough. The PCT have failed to demonstrate that Community Support Services,such as Social Workers, Direct payment schemes, therapists, nurses, equipment stores, wheelchair service have enough budget, staffing and working well together. This should be done before the Royal is 'signed off'.
June 2009 Accessible Taxi developmentsLiverpool City Council will have to face the shame of Discrimination Charges in High Court
28th July 2009 is set to be ‘D’-Day for Liverpool City Council after the date was announced for a full hearing into charges that the Council has failed to meet its duties under the Disability Discrimination Act. The case, to be heard at the High Court in London, centres on claims that the Council persists in blocking many wheelchair users from travelling safely in city taxis. Alma Lunt is taking the action on behalf of many other disabled people across Liverpool. A coalition of local disability groups is campaigning to allow a new type of modern hackney cab that can safely accommodate many passengers with different needs and especially people needing space for larger wheelchairs. Success
Manufactured by wheelchair accessible vehicle specialists Allied Vehicles, the Peugeot E7 design has proved successful across 95% of the UK. Nottingham is only the latest city to approve the Peugeot E7 cab , which is also welcomed in every Merseyside borough, except Liverpool. The hackney-style cab is equipped with a shallow under-floor ramp, easy access step, high-visibility grab-handles and – crucially - a larger, level passenger area floor than is available in the traditional ‘London-style’ cab. Facing disability discrimination charges in the High Court represents a major embarrassment for the City Council. Local disability groups, however, are deeply disappointed that it has proved necessary to pursue this test case in order to get the Council to listen to their views.John Bruce, Secretary of Liverpool Wheelchair User Group, commented: “Despite its legal requirements to consult and consider the needs of local communities, the sad fact is that our own Council makes promises and Council leaders sign big public documents about reducing barriers, but has bizarrely refused to listen to local disabled people on what is a crucial, safety-related issue which affects the lives of a great many local wheelchair users, and which won’t even cost the Council a penny. We all need some answers to the question why!“Licensing the new-style cab simply gives a choice of vehicle to drivers”, continued John. “We have many great cabbies in Liverpool and we want to look after them better, with the choice of a vehicle with more space inside. The wheelchair ramp in tests has a shallower gradient, meaning less strain on the driver as well as less bumping and manoeuvring for a disabled person who needs to remain in their own chair when travelling.”Wheelchair user Jean Price, of MCIL added: “We continue to explain our case, and won’t and can’t go away, as we have no alternative apart from staying marooned at home or travelling unsafely. “At present many people with larger wheelchairs have to be left sideways, scarily unsecured when travelling in the smaller traditional London cabs. Whilst we would welcome a proposed new Mercedes cab on the streets of Liverpool, which we understand may come before the Licensing Committee soon, it unfortunately has little more wheelchair manoeuvring space to offer than the traditional London Cab.”April 2009- Warmer weather is coming . Tell us about the places you go or want to go. How do you rate the accessibility? Let us know. Nottingham sees sense and licenses E7
London, Manchester, Liverpool, Peterborough and Norwich. Last remaining Council licensing committees to still ignore the research and the evidence of shortcomings of smaller traditional taxis and still block modern taxis such as the E7 as a valuable vehicle that safely accomodates larger wheelchairs -
Feb 2009- Liverpool LINk launchedLINks Liverpool LINk or Local Involvement Network is now launched. It is THE group commissioned and funded by Central Government to scrutinise ALL Health and Social Care activity in Liverpool. Liverpool LINk is part of a national network of groups and individuals set up to make sure that health and social care services are planned and delivered to meet the needs of the people that use them. Start off by signing up for YOUR membership. ( see our LWUG support page for more details ) For further information about how you can get involved, please contact 0151 227 5177 or info@liverpoollink.org.uk
December 2008- Liverpool City Leaders have presented their unbelievable case through their Solicitors.The basics of the case is the application of amazing logic.- A vehicle manufacturing company ,Lti have produced the Traditional London Taxi TX designs for many years and describe it as ‘wheelchair accessible’. LWUG is happily on record of appreciating the introduction of many innovative access features over its long history and that it meets the needs of quite a few people.
- Liverpool Licensing Committee, presumably with the guidance of their solicitors, have decided that when concerns have been raised about safely accommodating people using larger wheelchairs in the only vehicle design currently licensed in our City, that their response would be not to look for up to date studies or even commission their own research, but to look at the brochures produced by LTi and as it uses the phrase ,’wheelchair accessible’ then it is….Wheelchair Accessible.
- Not even LTI would claim that in 2008 with the vast range of wheelchairs in use, many larger, that the TX design could accommodate all and every chair design.
- Yet Liverpool Licensing Committee have apparently applied logic and as the LTi brochures write ‘Wheelchair Accessible’, then all and every wheelchair can be accommodated, without exception.
- THEREFORE YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE A PROBLEM!
- THEREFORE YOU CANNOT HAVE A PROBLEM! AND IF YOU DO YOU YOU ARE BEING FUSSY AND basically MAKING IT UP!
- You would think that if people were having difficulty with safe accessible travel in the only vehicle design on the streets, then a responsible Council would try to find out more .
- LWUG , MCIL and other individuals and representative groups, to the best of our knowledge have yet to be invited to a single meeting to hear our concerns, in spite of recording in writing many times of unsafe and dangerous experiences for wheelchair users when using hackney cabs in our City streets.
- We have had to invite ourselves and knock hard on the Committee door.
- We thought once our Council Officers and Councillors realised it wasn’t a question of us asking for a little bit more comfort, but real and dangerous issues of safety, then we would have an opportunity to explain.
- Instead we have a letter hundreds of pages long through the Solicitors for Liverpool presumably at vast expense, expressing pretty much that they didn’t realise we were talking about safety all the time, and to be honest they weren’t interested in hearing about our safety anyway! because the established traditional London cab is 'wheelchair accessible', as the brochure says and a modern multi million pound budget council doesn't need to do much more than read it out from the brochure.
- Why is our message about safety of many wheelchair users, trying to travel round Liverpool So inconvenient for the licensing committee?
- Is there something they know that we don’t?
October 2008 Liverpool’s wheelchair users have been granted the right to challenge their Council’s discriminatory licensing policy in a judicial review test case. High Court Judge Sir Michael Harrison ordered a full hearing of the case in Early Spring 2009.
We hope the Licensing Committee will look again at how much merely allowing the licensing of this vehicle would mean to safety and ease of access for disabled people especially with larger wheelchairs. Can Liverpool live with Choice?-Yes. Can the Taxi firms and garages of Liverpool live with Choice?-Yes. Just like most parts of the UK who sucessfully allow both the E7 and the London style cabs on the streets.August 2008 Knowsley Council say yes to Choice in Taxis and licence the Peugeot E7.Cab drivers refusing to help? We have some great drivers in this City, but both MCIL and LWUG have had disturbing reports recently that some people using larger wheelchairs have suddenly been refused travel by their regular taxi firm. If you know anything more about this obscene development, please let us know ASAP July 24th 2008 BBC News LWUG- We made our case on Northwest Tonight - still available of the Internet.May 2008. Changing Place in Liverpool City Centre now open! A Changing Place complete with overhead trackhoist, adjustable height changing table, just bring your own sling! is available in the Liverpool One Centre.For more info tel 0151 232 3140. or see national website http://www.changing-places.org Shopmobility moves to amazing new home in Liverpool One Centre.(see our Accessible Liverpool Page for more details.)LWUG and Merseyside Coalition of Inclusive Living (MCIL) jointly support a campaign for Licensing of Peugeot E7 taxi as a Hackney Carriage in Liverpool. The familiar LTI TX London style 'Black Cab' is helpful for lots of people, but many wheelchair users are forced to travel sideways, unsecured and unsafe. The E7 taxi would be a major contribution to an accessible City and many taxi drivers we have spoken to would welcome them. December 4th 2007 event at Lifehouse very successful, lots of positive comments as people tried out the E7 taxicab for themselvesDiversity in Taxis- a chance of Access for All? Why are we denied it by our Council and Councillors?Denied by Council meeting Friday 28th March 2008. Chairman Malcolm Kelly and fellow Councillors chose to ignore the evidence and testimony of widespread danger and discomfort of wheelchair users, travelling sideways and unsecured in the London style cabs.They accepted a 'picture painted at the meeting' of any modern cab style cabs like the E7 as.. juggernauts careering across the pavements of Liverpool in the hands of maniacs, with passengers jumping out dangerously all over the place unused to... sliding doors! Because of this, we are denied access by the Committee to an accessible taxi design that is in use succesfully and safely in large cities across the UK.We will to continue to campaign and lobby ..because we have no alternative for safe travel. What has happened to inclusive transport planning and the DDA?
Come and join usWe meet monthly at Lifehouse,in Summers Road, Brunswick Business Park. Liverpool L3 4BL reception tel. 0151 296 7733
see LWUG News and Events page- top right for further detailssee About LWUG page for contact details
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