Canal Quarter – Cardiff Council’s Response to Concerns Over Loss of Blue Badge Parking

I sent an email to various members of the council. 

The email I sent to the council included 2 questions. 

1. How many Blue Badge bays are you relocating? 
2. Where will Blue Badge parking be relocated?

10th January 2021, I sent my first email to numerous members of Cardiff Council. I received two responses.

First Response

Cardiff Council:

11th January 2021, ‘at present we are aiming to move all of the spaces to other locations in the city centre. We are working on an enabling package for the wider scheme, part of this will hopefully see us move all of the lost spaces to new locations in Windsor Place and the Civic Centre’. 

I responded on 11th January, ‘Will these parking spaces be in place before you remove access to the current space on Churchill Ways?’’

Cardiff Council:

‘Hopefully yes, that’s the aim. We should have more information in the coming months’.

Second Response

I received the second response on 5th February 2021. ‘The Transport Planning & Policy Team have confirmed that all displaced disabled parking bays will be relocated. Of the 36 spaces that are on Churchill Way, 25 will remain in place and 22 of the northern end of the street will be relocated. We are currently looking at plans to relocate the lost disabled parking spaces in the Windsor Place, St Andrew’s Crescent and Civic Centre areas, these plans will be published in the coming months. As with all of our major transport schemes we have been consulting with the Cardiff Access Focus Group, and we will continue to do so over the coming months’.

I unfortunately did not follow up these responses last year as I naively believed they would announce these plans on their website and Facebook page. Which they had done with most other things regarding Canal Quarter. 

Most Recent Correspondence 

11th March 2022, I emailed the sender of the second response. ‘I note that plans are already underway with 11 of the spaces now out of use. I would like to know where these have been relocated to and when they were ready to be used?’.

Cardiff Council:

4th April 2022, ‘The Officer has advised that the works on the Canal have begun and they are currently undertaking a Traffic Regulation Order process to change 11 of the paid parking bays on Windsor Place to disabled bays, which we hope that these spaces will be available for use this autumn’.

14th April 2022, I replied ‘In regards to your response on blue badge parking and Canal Quarter I’d like to know why the decision to remove 11 spaces before relocating them was made? 

Something as essential as Blue Badge parking in the city centre should have been replaced before removal. 

I would also like to know what efforts were taken to update Cardiff’s Disabled Community on these changes. At what point was the community made aware of the removal of 11 Blue Badge bays? Also how was this communicated?’.

Cardiff Council:

3rd May 2022, ‘Officers have advised we are still committed to moving the spaces to Windsor Place, this scheme is currently going through the traffic regulation order process. The wider scheme (including the loss of 11 Disabled Bays) has gone through a public consultation (Dec 2020-Feb2021), and was communicated to the Cardiff Access Focus Group as part of that process. At the time it was the intention to move the parking spaces before entering site with the canal scheme, but the situation changed and the decision to press on with the canal scheme was due to funding being available in year to complete the associated road scheme. 

Failure to award the tender at that stage would have risked a loss of funding, it was also observed that the are was never fully parked and could therefore handle the loss of 11 spaces in the short term. 

I hope this information is of assistance’. 

What Next? 

Correspondence with Cardiff Council will continue. Despite them shadow banning me on Twitter.

I will post updates as and when I receive them. 

For now, my priorities are:

• Gaining more knowledge on Cardiff Access Focus Group. Who are they? What do they do? How long has the group been running?
• Understanding how Cardiff Council accurately observed the use of Blue Badge Parking on Churchill Way, during a pandemic. When the public were asked to stay home and disabled people were asked to shield.
• Asking Cardiff Council why the Disabled Community is inessential to them. Why do we not hear of or see updates on matters affecting disabled people?

Have you read the changes Cardiff Council have made to Churchill Way? If not you can do so here.