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Major retail chains are prepared to take tougher action to enforce disabled bays after being urged to do so by Norman Baker, the local transport minister.

There are 2.5 million blue badge holders in Britain. While local authorities can issue fines to motorists who illegally use disabled bays on the public highway, they are powerless to act on private land.

"Many disabled people and disability groups have told me about the problems they have in finding a disabled bay at supermarkets because of their abuse by people who have no justification for parking in reserved spaces,” Mr Baker said.

His appeal for tougher action has been backed by seven chains: Aldi, Marks and Spencer, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Waitrose and Lidl.

They have said that able-bodied motorists using the bays will be issued parking charge notices - the private equivalent of a parking ticket.
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Motorists could also be shamed by having the model and number plate of their car read out over the store’s tannoy system.

“We have always been concerned about disabled parking spaces and we will penalise those able-bodied drivers that incorrectly park in spaces allocated for blue-badge drivers,” said Mark Gunter, Morrisons’ group retail director.

“However, we also depend on the public to help us ensure that these parking bays remain available for disabled drivers."

The move was backed by the AA. “Our view is that penalties need to be severe because the kind of person who would park in a disabled bay would laugh off a smaller fine,” a spokesman said.

“Anybody who has challenged an able-bodied motorist who parks in a bay is likely to get a tongue-lashing, if not worse.”

My OH walked over to our local Morrisons a while back and there was a Lamborghini parked sideways accross two disabled spaces. A couple of workers who were outside having a smoke told him to move and park over there in the main car park

His reply was "I'm not parking over there it might get scratched"

I think it would be if I was there :-D

jax

You might find chapstick is more effective ;-)