Warning that town's new apartments could 'exclude' disabled people
manchestereveningnews.co.ukA new apartment block in Stockport could 'exclude' disabled people, a councillor has warned, because of a lack of accessible parking.
Plans to turn the historic Stockport Probation Centre building into 45 new homes was given the green light on August 15, in a scheme designed to bring the empty site back into use and boost housing availability in the town centre.
The plan aims to keep the main part of the probation centre, which dates back to 1900, but demolish more recent aspects of the site to be replaced by a new building.
No parking spaces are included in the 'car free' design, apart from two disabled bays and one loading bay. READ MORE: Marple's new swimming pool WILL be built six years after historic baths closed The council's highway engineer stated in a report that the site is "well-served by public transport", and argued that those who rely on a car "wouldn’t choose to live in the development." But Coun Anna Charles-Jones said disabled people face being excluded from the apartments over the lack of accessible parking spaces, and that the advice from council officers was "really concerning." "Given that the parking provision for disabled people is supposed to be one accessible space per ten dwellings, and this is a block of 45 with two spaces, I find that really concerning for a council that has supposedly adopted the social model of disability," she added. "To a disabled person like myself, that reads as you don't have a choice to live here." She said that the location of the new apartments, next to Disability Stockport's offices, would mean disabled parking spaces in the area are going to be "full an awful lot of the time, which makes this development even less accessible." Coun Mark Jones, chair of the
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