1. 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

You can contact us on

lwug@hotmail.co.uk 

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.......

•  The wheelchairs we need
•  An accessible City to live in.

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!

Liverpool Licensing Committee met on Thursday 26th November 2009 2pm Millennium House <o:p>

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 And FINALLY AGREED to the licensing of the Peugeot E7 as a Hackney cab to be used on the Streets of Liverpool!!!!<o:p>

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Big, big  thanks for the help, advice and encouragement  from so  many people.<o:p>

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If neighbouring Knowsley is anything to go by, we will  start having  E7 taxis with their larger passenger areas, shallower ramps within a few months.<o:p>

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 Please don’t sit back  now  we are  finally successful  with this . <o:p>

Yes, this will be a new chapter for many  in accessible door to door  transport for Liverpool.  But…..There is still so much more to do to make many more parts of our City, its  homes, streets, shops, public buildings new and old, more accessible for all . <o:p>

That’s even before we start looking at the key  services provided by Social Services, hospitals and  Liverpool Primary Care Trust, which are all very vulnerable to freezing and even cut backs, as accountants and finance directors  look out  for ‘savings’.<o:p>

   Let us know  through MCIL , LWUG , ACSIL, Disability Network and other representative groups of your achievements and  continuing challenges so we can get people working together effectively, including finding the parts of our own City Council  who should be, and often are, wanting to help make this   more  of a achievable reality. <o:p>

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 Licensing Committee meeting Thursday 2pm 26th November 2009 Millenium House

WE ARE NEARLY THERE! …..WE HOPE……. BUT we need your  active support.

THIS IS WHY IT IS IMPORTANT  FOR WHEELCHAIR USERS TO PHYSICALLY

GIVE YOUR SUPPORT  ON NOVEMBER 26th 2009

  It appears London Taxi International , LTI , the makers of the traditional London Cab are still shouting and are sending threatening letters to Liverpool City Council, saying amongst other things, that hardly anyone in Liverpool actually wants the larger multipurpose Peugeot E7 cab,  and that virtually everyone’s wheelchair needs can be met by the  cab that they sell, and accommodating people with larger wheelchairs... well…. it doesn’t matter. They are strangely choosing to  ignore the  Department of Transport's own  research by  Hitchcock et al , an important part of the High Court case in July 2009, showing clearly the increasing numbers of larger and more complex wheelchairs.

 There are even reports of some wheelchair users in Liverpool  bizarrely saying the same thing, so that  although the Peugeot E7 is already making a difference and  enjoyed in widespread successful and safe use across most of the UK (including in Sefton and  Knowsley), WE IN LIVERPOOL must apparently be denied what  the E7 has to offer so many people!  Why??

 Liverpool Licensing Team has now produced a report  strongly recommending the E7 as a significant contribution to accessible travel as a multi-purpose taxi. This is the Team of  Council Officers that advises the Councillors, but the Final decision must be made by a Committee of councillors on the 26th November 2009.

Here is the web link to the report and recent letters from LTI to our Council.

http://councillors.liverpool.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=502&MId=10273&Ver=4  

Liverpool Licensing Committee meets on Thursday 26th November 2009 2pm Millennium House

The Agenda includes reconsideration of Licensing for the Peugeot E7 cab.

We need wheelchair users there to remind the Councillors who make the Final Decision:

<o:p> How much difference access to modern larger size cabs would make to our own lives.

That the Peugeot E7 offers a bigger size cab with the much larger flat floor area.

That we would welcome more space to travel  safely with family and friends which the rest of the people of Liverpool take for granted.

That the shallower integral ramp does the job quickly and effectively with much less strain on the backs of  our cab drivers and helpers.

 We have been told that there are still those trying to block choice and use of the Peugeot E7

 ·        Even now, there are reports of wheelchair users in our City who, for their own bizarre motives, want to actively block the Peugeot E7, even though it is successfully in use in 95% of the UK!

·        We would like to point out that if they, and their friends and family, feel they can travel safely and easily in the smaller traditional cab, that’s fine, they would have a choice to carry on using traditional London Cabs – but many wheelchair users have great difficulty and cannot use them safely.

·        We would ask how people and fellow wheelchair users can logically justify a position (that may yet be put forward at the Committee on the 26th November) of wishing to block and deny safe door to door taxi travel for  the first time for some wheelchair users and easier travel for many others?

<o    Liverpool City Council Licensing Officers have  now issued a new report for the  Council meeting strongly recommending the licensing of the E7 and resisting all the last minute threatening legal letters from LTI the makers of the traditional London cab.

2.   Manufacturing and selling taxi cabs is a commercial business. For 95% of the UK, drivers  buying and operating cabs have a choice of at least the London Cab and the Peugeot E7,  thus giving the general public, disabled people and especially wheelchair users a choice of licensed vehicles. The choice works for much of the rest of the country, why not Liverpool?

3.   What would change if the E7 was licensed in Liverpool? Well commercially,  LTI would lose their  effective monopoly in Liverpool and have to share the taxi sales market with others – this already happens in much of the rest of the UK. The obvious conclusion is that this is their  strong motivation to try and block the licensing of the E7, and in doing so deny choice and access to safe travel for  those larger wheelchairs. In a nutshell, they are trying to deny choice to disabled people because they don’t want to lose their current monopoly.

4.    They are  shamefully trying to deny access especially for the increasing number of people with larger wheelchairs who are unable to travel safely and secured in their own  smaller size  traditional cab design.

5.   LTI have energetically spent at least the last 2 years trying to block the E7 from being licensed. Senior LTI staff were even noticed openly in the High Court in July 2009 talking at length with the solicitors and barristers of Liverpool City Council. These solicitors were paid for by the citizens of Liverpool, and should have been there representing the interests of the people of Liverpool,  totally independent of the commercial interests, which LTI clearly has.

6.   The result was the High Court  Judge ‘wiped the floor’ with what was put before him, declaring that no acceptable  evidence had been put before him that  justified the  unsubstantiated safety concerns expressed as reasons for previously blocking the E7 in Liverpool. These echoed those issues previously raised by LTI, that the E7 has sliding doors and is unable to meet the (now discredited)  27 ft turning circle  requirement restriction.

London based TV presenter Lara Masters gives  E7 taxi  a gold star for access 

'Personally, I am less worried that my cab can do a perfect pirouette than that it’s an accessible vehicle that can get me from A to B. Time for an uprising'- Lara Masters 

link to Lara Masters thoughts

June 2009 Rebuilding of Liverpool Royal Hospital

At a cost of £470 million this may be needed but....

1. 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.
2. 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 developments

Liverpool City Council will have to  face the shame of Discrimination Charges in High Court

28^th 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 -