Patriotic Street car park disabled spaces access (FOI)

Request 

Today (1 November 2022) Patriotic Street car park was showing a sign saying full, and the barrier had come down impeding access. But there were three disabled bays free which my disabled friend was unable to use for a hospital appointment. 

A

How does the empty space get calculated? 

B

Why is there no provision for disabled spaces still being available when a barrier is triggered? 

Response 

A

A parking officer from the car parks team carries out a space count daily to evaluate the number of vehicles that would be allowed to access the car park before the barrier comes down.  The number of disabled spaces available, along with any standard spaces that may be out of use due to maintenance etc, are taken into consideration when determining this figure. 

Unfortunately, when the car park reaches the full number, the barrier is lowered, even if disabled spaces are still available, access can only be gained when the barrier is back up again. 

B

The car park team are not always based at Patriotic Street, therefore, they will not be able to provide access to the car park to enable a badge holder to use a free disabled space when the barrier is down.

It should be noted that disabled badge holders can park in any space in public car parks, including the hospital parking in Patriotic Street, as long as their blue badge and disc clock are displayed. 

Two additional disabled spaces were created in the hospital parking area within Patriotic Street car park in October 2022.