• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • About DNS
  • Subscribe to DNS
  • Advertise with DNS
  • Support DNS
  • Contact DNS

Disability News Service

the country's only news agency specialising in disability issues

  • Home
  • Independent Living
    • Arts, Culture and Sport
    • Crime
    • Education
    • Employment
    • Housing
    • Transport
  • Activism & Campaigning
  • Benefits & Poverty
  • Politics
  • Human Rights
You are here: Home / Activism and Campaigning / Campaigner’s legal fight forces council to scrap ‘ludicrous’ pavement policy
A female wheelchair-user holds up a letter in front of a City of York Council sign

Campaigner’s legal fight forces council to scrap ‘ludicrous’ pavement policy

By John Pring on 23rd February 2023 Category: Activism and Campaigning

Listen

A campaigning disabled woman who found herself trapped on a pavement by café furniture has forced her local council to rewrite its “ludicrous” and unlawful licensing policy after a successful legal action.

Flick Williams, a visually-impaired powerchair-user, left a shoe shop in York last May to find that tables and chairs were blocking her exit in both directions.

The two businesses had been given permission to block the pavement with their furniture by City of York Council, even though this was in breach of government guidance introduced during the pandemic.

The guidance says cafes can only be licensed to use pavements if they leave at least 1.5 metres space for pedestrians to pass by.

Williams launched a legal action through the county court, alleging discrimination under the Equality Act.

Now the council has conceded defeat and has agreed to pay her legal costs and compensation, as well as amending its licensing policy.

Williams has told Disability News Service that she believes other local authorities have introduced similar unlawful policies, and she has advised activists in other parts of the country how to challenge their local authorities.

The “extremely distressing” incident took place in May 2022.

After spending about half an hour inside a shoe shop, Williams came out to find that tables and chairs had been put out by the two neighbouring businesses, blocking the pavement in both directions.

The high kerb meant the medically-retired disability equality trainer and access consultant had no exit route and had to shout for help.

But when some young passers-by started to move some of the furniture onto the road for her, the landlord of one of the businesses came running out to challenge them.

He told Williams the council had given him permission to block the pavement with his tables and chairs, but he eventually apologised after she explained her situation.

She said: “That’s what I found so upsetting about the whole event; it put me directly in conflict with this business owner who is standing over me in the pavement, shouting, ‘I’ve got a license, the council lets me do this.’

“I’m very calmly saying, ‘I don’t doubt it for one minute, but you can see the problem. I am trapped on this pavement,’ and he looked at the kerb and looked at me and back again and kind of said, ‘I’m kind of sorry,’ in a not very sorry sort of a way, and moved the furniture enough to let me get past.

“I hate the word ‘vulnerable’, most of us do, but it just put me in a very vulnerable situation.”

Despite her repeated attempts to persuade the council to change its policy, it refused to do so, and Williams was forced to begin a county court action.

She said: “I tried the nice way, I wrote emails and letters and they just tried to justify what they were doing.

“I didn’t file with the court until September, so it really was a last resort.

“It was very clearly unlawful, and I thought I didn’t really have a choice.

“As someone who has been disabled since before we even had legislation to protect us from discrimination, I decided that I must use this hard-fought-for legislation to try to rectify the situation.”

The council has now settled the case out of court, introducing a new policy and paying her costs and compensation.

Williams said the new policy seems to be working so far.

She said: “There is a very noticeable difference. I am quite sure that when the weather improves, we will see some more infractions.

“All the disability groups within York have been circulating the information about how to report infractions because we feel that if cafes are breaching the new policy then they need to be reported quickly because otherwise the whole thing very quickly gets out of hand.

“It’s just a shame, as always, that we had to get there the hard way. If they had listened to us properly in the first place, none of it would have been necessary.”

Williams also plays a leading role in the Reverse the Ban coalition of 27 groups who continue to push City of York Council to reverse its decision to ban the vehicles of blue badge-holders from the historic city centre.

She said: “It is noticeably making a positive difference for disabled people who can still actually get to the city centre, despite the blue badge ban, and that fight continues.”

The council had refused to apologise or explain its actions by noon today (Thursday), or say why it breached the government guidance, or clarify its new policy.

Picture: Flick Williams holds the legal “letter before action” she sent City of York Council 

 

A note from the editor:

Please consider making a voluntary financial contribution to support the work of DNS and allow it to continue producing independent, carefully-researched news stories that focus on the lives and rights of disabled people and their user-led organisations.

Please do not contribute if you cannot afford to do so, and please note that DNS is not a charity. It is run and owned by disabled journalist John Pring and has been from its launch in April 2009.

Thank you for anything you can do to support the work of DNS…

Share this post:

Share on X (Twitter)Share on FacebookShare on WhatsAppShare on Reddit

Tags: City of York Council Discrimination equality act Reverse the Ban York

Pygmalion at the Old Vic. Access performances. Icons for audio description, captioned, BSL and relaxed performances.

Related

Disabled politician sues Lib Dems over discrimination that left her suicidal
14th September 2023
Autistic man to receive £20,000 from NHS after refusal of job interview adjustments
7th September 2023
Train company assessments provide fresh evidence of ticket office closure concerns
7th September 2023

Primary Sidebar

Pygmalion at the Old Vic. Access performances. Icons for audio description, captioned, BSL and relaxed performances.Pygmalion at the Old Vic. Access performances. Icons for audio description, captioned, BSL and relaxed performances.

Access

Latest Stories

Ministers ignore ESA claimants in suicide prevention strategy… again

Watchdog appears set to approve mass ticket office closures

Disabled politician sues Lib Dems over discrimination that left her suicidal

‘We don’t trust government to listen to ticket office consultation,’ MPs are told

Questions for Network Rail as plans emerge for yet another inaccessible footbridge

Leonard Cheshire’s care home closure plan ‘is underhand and immoral’

Report calls for ‘proper safety net’ for disabled people

Minister misleads MPs over plans to remove ‘fitness for work’ safety net

‘Fitness for work’ test changes are ‘horrendously dangerous’, activists warn

Autistic man to receive £20,000 from NHS after refusal of job interview adjustments

Advice and Information

Readspeaker

Footer

The International Standard Serial Number for Disability News Service is: ISSN 2398-8924

  • Accessibility Statement
  • Privacy Policy
  • Site map
  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Copyright © 2023 Disability News Service

Site development by A Bright Clear Web