Access failures at Tory conference leave wheelchair-user suspended in mid-air for more than an hour

An accessible transport expert was left stuck in mid-air on an unsafe platform lift for over an hour at this week’s Conservative conference, just after the party’s own disability group admitted access was not a priority for the Tories.

Clive Gilbert, head of accessible transport for the thinktank Policy Connect, was left with a long, deep scratch along his arm after manoeuvring his way onto the lift.

He had been on the way to his own conference fringe event, held in what appears to have been the least accessible room in Birmingham’s ICC, which hosted this week’s conference.

The party failed to alert Policy Connect to the access challenges of the room it booked for the event on “building a more accessible transport system for disabled people”, held in conjunction with the National Centre for Accessible Transport (ncat).

James Windsor-Clive, chair of the Conservative Disability Group, later told the meeting that there was no-one within the Conservative party with a “focus” on access issues for disabled members because of the party’s financial challenges.

Gilbert, who uses a powered wheelchair, had arrived 40 minutes before Sunday’s event was due to begin, to be confronted with a series of eight steps and a rickety and ageing platform lift.

He and four other disabled people who needed to use the lift – including ncat’s chief executive Dr Emma Partlow – had to wait for staff to arrive and then wait another 10 minutes for someone to locate the key to operate the stairlift.

Gilbert, the first to use the lift, then suffered a long graze to his arm (pictured) as he performed the “complex manoeuvre” necessary to position himself on the platform.

He said he also felt “patronised” by an ICC staff member who light-heartedly but repeatedly called him a “troublemaker” as he tried to access the lift.

Gilbert told Disability News Service (DNS): “In my experience, platform lifts like the one at the ICC almost always fail or result in damage to my wheelchair.

“They are also extremely temperamental. Sometimes they work on the way up but won’t take me down again – leaving me stranded.”

He had booked the room through the Conservative party conference website, which included “very little information about the room’s location or any potential accessibility issues”.

He said: “As we walked down the corridor past a number of other rooms, my heart sank when it became clear that ours was the only room up a flight of stairs and accessible only via a platform lift.”

During the fringe meeting, another wheelchair-user – who appeared to be a party member – said he had not felt safe using the platform lift.

He told the meeting: “If we’re thinking about how we develop transport, we’ve also got to think about how we travel around events such as this.

“And I do believe the party hasn’t been as good to somebody who is disabled here today.

“And I love this building. I come here regularly, but this is one of the furthest and hardest rooms to get to.”

Windsor-Clive told the meeting he had recently met with Conservative party chair Kevin Hollinrake to discuss issues around access and the conference.

He said: “I think he took them on board, but as we all know, it’s been quite a difficult period for the party, and that’s reflected in CCHQ*, and… where we are in the electoral cycle.

“And, at the moment, there’s not someone within the internal team who’s got a focus on this.

“I’m really trying to push for that and have someone who you kind of go to to say, ‘Look, we’ve got these points,’ but at the moment we don’t have that mechanism.

“I am trying to work on it, but… I do have to sort of work with the resources that CCHQ have, and at the moment lots of people are wearing different hats, and this isn’t one of the key focuses, sadly.”

After the meeting, Gilbert was the last one to use the lift and he said he felt “very unsafe”.

He said: “Because I drive my wheelchair with a chin-operated joystick, I can’t look down very easily and couldn’t see the edge of the platform.

“Consequently, I was very tentative in getting back on.”

On the way down, the lift came to what he described as a “shuddering halt”.

He was left balanced precariously on the platform for “well over an hour” (pictured) before ICC engineers managed to bring it back down to floor level, and even then he could not avoid colliding with the wall as he finally left the lift.

He told DNS: “The entire experience was very demeaning and really quite dangerous – the situation could easily have resulted in serious damage or injury to me as well as anyone else who had to use the platform lift to gain access to the meeting.”

He now plans to lodge formal complaints with both the ICC and the Conservative party.

He said: “Both the Conservative party and the ICC have a particular responsibility to demonstrate best practice in accessibility – and in how they work with disabled people more broadly.

“If organisations with this level of profile and influence don’t aspire to and achieve the highest possible standards, how can we expect others to?”

An ICC spokesperson said in a statement: “We are sorry for the distress caused to the visitor on Sunday and to any others affected.

“We want our venue to be welcoming and accessible to everyone.

“We will review the circumstances of this incident, alongside the feedback received, and work closely with event organisers to identify any improvements we can make for future events.”

The Conservative party had not responded by noon today (Thursday) to requests to comment on the incident.

*Conservative Campaign Headquarters