British disabled people against cuts

This 7 September 2016 video from London, England is called UK: Disability campaigners block Westminster Bridge to protest benefit cuts.

By Rory MacKinnon in Britain:

Disability activists round on councils’ £10m cut to public toilet budgets

Monday 17 December 2012

Disability campaigners reacted with outrage yesterday after seeing new research showed that some English and Welsh councils have slashed spending on public toilets by a third.

Public-sector union Unison said there had been an overall cut of £10.4 million since 2010, or about an eighth.

Metropolitan councils hacked away the most, with an average cut of 33 per cent.

The biggest cuts were in London and north-west England, with 10 councils slashing more than £250,000 each.

Unison local government secretary Heather Wakefield said it was a serious public health issue.

Access to public toilets “should be the measure of civilised society,” she said.

“We have come a long way from the Victorian sewer-streets, awash with human waste,” she said.

Linda Burnip of Disabled People Against the Cuts said the lack of accessible toilets was already a problem for many disabled people.

Toilets in pubs and restaurants were little help as they were rarely accessible or had additional facilities like hoists or changing beds, she said.

“This means many disabled people just can’t go out or can only go out for very short lengths of time.

“These are the types of real-life barriers to employment that Chancellor George Osborne, Work and Pensions Secretary Ian Duncan Smith and other ministers just seem to be oblivious to when they attack disabled people as benefit scroungers,” she said.

A spokeswoman for disability charity Scope said it was “disappointing” that financial pressures were leading councils to cut funding.

“For many disabled people, knowing that there are accessible public conveniences located around the country can give them the confidence they need to get out and about in their community and use local amenities,” she said.

In October fellow charity Mencap led a “flush mob” in London’s Trafalgar Square to highlight the capital’s lack of changing places for people with mobility issues.

There are just 29 fully accessible changing places in Greater London, with none on the capital’s major shopping streets or the five main rail stations.

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