A CALL has been made to created a website to help Reading people with additional needs.
If it went ahead, it would contain information such as blue badge parking spaces, locations of toilets for disabled people, and which places in the town are accessible for wheelchair users.
Reading council has faced calls to create a webpage that would be a ‘one stop shop’ for people with disabilities seeking important information.
Information provided on Reading Borough Council’s website has been scrutinised by Nigel McAlister, a member of the council’s Access and Disabilities Working Group.
He said that he had difficulty finding Reading specific information.
“If I go to an area which I’m not aware of, nine times out of 10 I go to their website to find out where disabled parking is, as different areas have different rules,” he said.
He felt Reading Borough Council’s website did not provide enough information on disabled parking.
“I’ve never found anything there, it’s all national. It’s the same with disabled toilets, you key in the website, you get no information at all. There are a lot of areas where people need access to that information,” Mr McAllister said.
He added that Camden Council in London has a particularly good website when asked for examples of good practice by Cllr Karen Rowland (Labour, Abbey) a fellow member of the group.
Cllr Jan Gavin (Labour, Caversham) asked the council’s website manager Adam Bevington how a ‘disabilities access page’ could be made.
Mr Bevington said he would begin an action plan with his team.
Cllr Gavin, the chair of the group, then asked Mr McAlister and others on the panel to compile a list of information that disabled people think would find helpful.
Discussion about the webpage took place at a meeting on Thursday, September 8.
