'People's selfish parking makes me not want to leave my house'

"I am looking ahead at how I am going to cross this road now. It's not immediately obvious how I am going to do it." Pam Thomas is in her electric wheelchair on Allerton Road in south Liverpool on a bright and cold Tuesday morning. She is looking to do something that many people take for granted every day - cross the road.

But Pam, 70, who has always lived with disabilities and has used a wheelchair for the past 25 years, spots a problem. She needs to use the dropped kerbs to be able to cross the road and on the other side of the road, this vital facility is being blocked by a man in a car who is sitting, parked up. "This is a classic example that happens so often," Pam explains with a resigned expression.

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"You're blocking the dropped kerb, I can't get across the road," she shouts to the man, who is apologetic and quickly moves his car out of the way so that Pam can cross onto the pavement on the other side of the road. "People don't even see it is there," she adds. "Some people think I should be grateful when they move, he wasn't too bad, sometimes you get people who can be quite rude about it."

Pam is showing us the challenges she and other people with disabilities face every single day in this city and all around the country because of how people park their cars and how others behave in general. Pavement parking has exploded as an issue in recent years, causing huge problems for people with disabilities as well as parents with prams.

As we cross over the busy Allerton Road and head along past a row of shops, we turn into a side road and Pam looks ominously down the street. This is a feeling she has on a far too regular basis.

The small road of terraced houses is jam packed with parked cars, the majority of which are stationed across part of the pavement. At one part of the street, next to where a white car is parked, there are two bins placed against a wall. The gap between bins and car is miniscule and Pam has absolutely no chance of safely making her way through it.

"This is a real problem," she says, gesturing at the tiny space. "I am pretty much stuck. I could risk scratching the car but that would be a shame if I did that. I am not going to go any further down that way. I would have to find another way around."

"I could go on the road, which is something I have had to do many, many times, but obviously that is dangerous. This is also a real problem for people with buggies and those with a visual impairment."

Pam, who was previously the council's cabinet member for equality, diversity and inclusion, is speaking to the ECHO ahead of International Day of Persons with Disabilities, which falls on December 3. The theme of this year's commemorative focusses on amplifying the leadership of persons with disabilities for an inclusive and sustainable future.

But as Pam shows us, there is lots of work to do to make people with disabilities feel included in everyday life and to build a sustainable future for everyone.

As we move further along Allerton Road, the route to turn into a side road is blocked by a Voi rental e-bike that has been left in the way. Once again Pam has no way of getting past and she is understandably frustrated. For several years now, the Swedish company has allowed people in Liverpool to rent e-scooters via a mobile phone app to get around the city, with the company adding e-bikes to its offer more recently.

"I'm going to have to go all the way back to where they came in. I was promised and promised by Voi that this kind of thing wouldn't happen with the bikes and the scooters, but here we are several years later, a good example of how the scooters or bikes are just abandoned. It happens in lots of places.

"I cannot use the scooters and the e-bikes, yet we are the people who come across this on a daily basis. We get no benefit from them. I am really annoyed. They haven't kept on top of this."

We have only been out with Pam on Allerton Road for 30 minutes and she has shown us three clear examples of how her day-to-day life is severely impacted by the actions of others when it comes to parking and the use of roads and pavements. She has long spoken out about these issues but is feeling increasingly down heartened.

"This is what puts me off," she says. "I'm just at a point now where I am like 'I will just stay in the house' and it shouldn't be that way. It makes me feel despondent really. It is that sense of them being entitled to park there. People that can walk and should walk don't, they can't get close enough to where they want to be. It is really selfish and is about 'I'm obviously more important than you and so I'm going to park where I want to park.'

"You can educate some people until the cows come home and they are still going to do what they are going to do because they are 'only going to be a minute' and they have got something really important to do and obviously disabled people haven't got anything important to do or need to be anywhere.

"Most people are ok," Pam adds, "but those who have that mindset of their entitlement to park where they want to park, it has just got worse. You see around the schools, every year a new set of parents come in and you have the same thing every time, they have got a child to get to school and they are going to get as close as they can and they don't care about anyone else."

Pam thinks the regulations for highways and roads are no longer fit for purpose and were designed at a time when far fewer cars were on the roads. She adds: "This is a national problem and the Department of Transport need to deal with it. It is an issue in this city but it happens everywhere."

In response to Pam's criticisms of Voi, A company spokesperson said: “Inconsiderate parking is never acceptable. Whilst the vast majority of our e-scooter and e-bike riders in Liverpool follow the rules, we take action against those who don’t. We issue fines and outright bans. Thousands of people choose e-scooters and e-bikes every day to get to work and education, and we want our service to work for everyone – whether customers or not.

“We’re grateful for Pam raising the issue and always appreciate community feedback regarding our scheme in Liverpool. As a result, we have removed the parking spot in question.

“We urge anyone who spots a poorly parked Voi vehicle to report it to us with details of location, time and the vehicle’s four-digit-number to report.voi.com or email support@voi.com so we can investigate.”