A motoring campaigner says he has 'no time' for people fraudulently using disabled parking permits as figures show that nearly 500 of them were withdrawn in Nottinghamshire over the last two years. Nottinghamshire County Council has released a report detailing its work on tackling a variety of fraud, including pensions overpayments and payments to private care homes for people who have died.
But in the report, being presented to councillors on the governance and ethics committee at a meeting on January 4, the county council said that Blue Badge misuse is one of the high risks that it continues to face. Blue Badges are designed for people with disabilities or with health conditions affecting their mobility.
It allows motorists with a badge to park in designated spaces and usually allows them to park for free. The rules on the use of badges are clear that they must not be given to the family or friends of a Blue Badge holder to allow them to benefit from the parking concession.
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Other rules on the use of the badges include never using a copied badge or trying to change the details on one. But Nottinghamshire County Council said that from 2020 to 2022, it withdrew 480 Blue Badges because of misuse.
The figures were compiled as part of the National Fraud Initiative that the county council has to take part in every two years, where it matches its own figures up with agencies including the Department for Work and Pensions. The authority estimates the scale of Blue Badge fraud over the last two years to be worth a potential £276,000.
Hugh Bladon, one of the founding members of the campaigning group the Alliance of British Drivers, said: "I have got absolutely no time for people who are not using Blue Badges properly. I am 81 and my wife is 82 and she has a Blue Badge, but I myself would never dream of using it when she is not with me.
"It's absolutely right that people misusing these badges are dealt with. It's obviously not right to say that they are a privilege, but they are there to recognise that somebody needs that little bit of help and it is a good system, so people abusing it absolutely need to be stopped."
Government data shows that there were 2.44 million Blue Badge holders in England as of March 31, 2020, an increase of 149,000 since the previous year. Between April 1, 2019, and March 31, 2020, the same data also shows that there were 1,429 prosecutions for the misuse of Blue Badges in England, which was slightly down on the previous year.
Cases in Nottinghamshire are also slightly down, with 576 badges having to be withdrawn from 2018 to 2020. But the authority says it is still carrying out work to 'respond to the threat of Blue Badge fraud' including an audit of its notification process, with an aim for this work to be complete by July.
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