In the three years since Finsbury Park was closed to cars at the start of the Covid lockdown, Haringey Council has consistently neglected the concerns of people with learning and physical disabilities regarding access to the park.
Though the park was still accessible on foot during the pandemic, people with learning and physical disabilities, who are usually brought by their families or support workers by car, were effectively excluded from the park facilities.
In 2020 I wrote in my Ham&High column in support of the campaign for access, pointing out that the council’s policy was treating people with and without disabilities unequally – in defiance of the Equalities Act which requires the authorities to make reasonable adjustments for people with disabilities.
In response, the council allocated three parking spaces for people with disability blue badges, at the Hornsey Gate entrance in Endymion Road.
The problem with this arrangement is that access to these parking spaces is restricted by the limited opening hours of the park gates (6am to 5pm on weekdays if Thames Water staff are there to open the gate).
Outside these times, people with disabilities and their carers can look past the intimidating barriers and through the padlocked gates to see cyclists, walkers and joggers enjoying the park facilities from which they are excluded. Specialist toilets for people with disabilities are also locked outside limited office hours.
The council has recently conducted another consultation exercise regarding the park boundaries and other issues, including vehicular access. But it remains thoughtless in relation to people with disabilities. There is not even decent signage providing information for disabled people. Indeed all the park signage is out of date.
Finsbury Park welcomes vast crowds for music festivals and funfairs and provides mud baths for devotees of extreme sports. But we do not have the facilities for making the park accessible to the frail, old and disabled. We need barriers that can be opened with a simple key system, a doubling of disabled parking spaces and clean, accessible toilets open when people need them.
- Mary Langan is chair of Haringey Severe and Complex Autism and Learning Disabilities Reference Group (SCALD).
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