Don’t take our parks, disabled say

Please leave disabled parking spaces free for those who really need them, two Mataura amputees say.

Margaret van Tongeren and Bill Lee had both found it difficult to find disabled parks in car parks attached to supermarkets and businesses because they were often used by able-bodied people.

‘‘I get frustrated at times. Why do you pay your $45 [for a Mobility Parking Permit] when you can't use the parks,'' Mrs van Tongeren said.

‘‘It's a bit annoying. The thing is we pay for them [parking permits],'' he said.

CCS issued the permits to people with disabilities who meet all the criteria and they were to be displayed in the vehicle's window when parking, he said.

Another problem was that some people displayed expired cards in their vehicle windows, Mr Lee said.

Mrs van Tongeren, a recent amputee, said she went to park in the Gore New World last car park last week and found no vacancies, but saw two able-bodied people emerge from a car parked in a disabled park and they had not displayed a disabled concession sticker in the window of the vehicle.

Mrs van Tongeren had to struggle into the supermarket from a more distant park through the rain.

Then she went to the Gore branch of the Warehouse, where she encountered the same car parked in a disabled car park at that business.

This was not the first time Mrs van Tongeren had encountered problems with parking.

She believed the problem had worsened in the past month.

‘‘People need to be more considerate and look where they are parking and think about what they are doing,'' Mrs van Tongeren said.

Able-bodied people using the parks had in the past told Mr Lee that ‘‘they were only there a couple of minutes'', he said.

Mr Lee said he replied: ‘‘You've got my park, would you like my disability?''

The pair believed there needed to be more frequent policing of disabled parks in private businesses' yards.

‘‘They [businesses] are obliged to put in [disabled] parks but they are not obliged to police them,'' Mr Lee said.

‘‘There doesn't seem much point in having them [disabled parks] if they can't be policed,'' Mrs van Tongeren said.

Amputee Society of Otago/Southland Gore spokesman Lloyd Cavanagh said he had talked to the previous owner-operator of Gore New World about the problem and was told to take note of the vehicle's registration and report it to the police.

‘‘It's a pain in the bum,'' Mr Cavanagh said.
Gore New World owner-operator Chris Griffin said he did not think there was a problem with able-bodied people using the disabled parks, as no-one had brought the matter to his attention.

He said if there was a problem then he encouraged customers to bring it to the attention of the store's staff.

Gore Town and Country Club manager David Rance said his staff tried to police the disabled parks to make sure they were used by the patrons they were intended for.

He did not think there were many incidents where ablebodied people used the parks, as staff knew the members who need the parks fairly well, he said.

‘‘It's not really abused,'' Mr Rance said.

However, if people did have a problem they should report it to the bar staff, Mr Rance said.