upvc windows in conservation area.

[Mary Fisher]

She'd been ableto use it before, hadn't she?

>

[John Anderton]

My upvc windows and doors are 15 years old and haven't needed

*anything* replaced in that time,

Cheers,

John

[Andy Hall]

Inappropriate application of legislation to a situation. The needs of a disabled person should take precedence over making an issue out of a front door.

This can be dressed up in whatever way one likes. How many of us can honestly say that we have never broken any law in any way? Very few, I suspect. Is the law always applied with utmost rigour when somebody is detected breaking it? Of course not.

Yet here we have a situation, where somebody disabled and living in their own home does something to maintain their independence.

Clearly the law was broken, no question about that.

My point is purely and simply about the difference between right and wrong. THe right thing to have done here would have been for no action to have been taken, or at the very most, a small fine given with that being an end to the matter.

Emmeline Pankhurst broke the law as did Emily Wilding Davison. This was on a different scale and in a different era, so can't be directly compared. It does, however, illustrate that sometimes it is necessary to take action outside the law and accept the consequences to expose misuse of them.

Set into that perspective, the machinery of the state (or more accurately the petty minded bureaucrats who have been inappropriately given the power to implement it), are at least morally wrong to have made a wooden front door more important than a disabled human being.

However one might try to dress it up, that is what they did, and it was wrong.

[Mary Fisher]

No Andy, you said, ">>>>> How many people do you know with post Polio syndrome who spend most of

I wondered what the point of that was. I still wonder.

The suffragists' law breaking achieved nothing.

Mary

[Chris Bacon]

What was that, then.

[Andy Hall]

I don't know whether you know, but it is very common for people who contracted polio decades ago to be affected by Post-polio syndrome.

Symptoms include fatigue, slowly progressive muscle weakening and even atrophy.

of people affected in the UK are relatively small and there are very few doctors who know anything about it.

The point is that polio is not something that necessarily leaves a stable disability.

[owdman]

Have you noticed an odd thing about "libertarians" who go on about personal choice, freedom, bureaucracy, nanny state etc: they all want to do stupid antisocial things such as wreck the environment by spoiling old buildings, drive Lardrovers over green lanes, drive faster than speed limits and ban speed cameras, make life difficult for the inadequate by reducing benefits and welfare etc etc. You know the list if you read the Mail or are a Jeremy Clarkson fan. Potentially dangerous loonies IMO. I'd string em all up! (No I wouldn't really - I'd force them to cycle a lot, live in communes and get in touch with the earth with a diet of muesli and soggy home made brown bread)

cheers

Jacob

[Andy Hall]

The point is that it is entirely possible and reasonable that somebody who was once able to open a heavy door, can no longer do so.

I disagree.

It actually had the effect in the short run of making some parliamentarians think that women could not be trusted with the vote if they were willing to commit suicide in order to obtain it.

Whether one can say that it directly led to change is debatable, but there is no doubt that the unreasonableness of male only voting was exposed.

[Andy Hall]

If one builds a new house, one is required by law to implement a whole raft of things for disabled access.

If one makes a change to one's own property when one is disabled in order to continue to live independently and not be a burden to the state, one is fined.

[Mary Fisher]

All the polio people I know have been partly paralysed since they were young, if anything they are better able to do things now than they could years ago. They have developed their upper bodies by using them.

It was the first world war which showed how vital women were to society and the economy..

That had always been the case.

What do you think led to male suffrage? Not law breaking!

Mary

[Mary Fisher]

Except that it isn't, necessarily.

That's because people don't contract it these days. Not many doctors know about all sorts of archaic diseases.

But you do :-)

If that's what you meant you should have said so.

Polio, like other conditions, can be used as a tear jerker to try to influence the gullible.

If the woman couldn't manage a door she could have had help from social services or polio or other charities but I do wonder how she managed in the rest of the house.

We don't know - you don't know. The newspapers tell readers what they want them to know -and sometimes some. Anything to sell the rag.

I'm off to bed, I have problems of my own. Perhaps I should contact the paper ...

Mary

[Chris Bacon]

You aRE Sheddi AICMFFPP&BAs.

[Chris Bacon]

OK...

But the change involved breaking the law, for no good reason, rather than keeping to it.

This is OT (again), & you're on a hiding to nothing (again), so I'm going to drop this. Feel free to continue in uk.p.disability, which I look at. I'll keep an eye out.

[Andy Hall]

PPS varies by person in terms of whether it happens at all as well as the period after original infection. That can be 50-60 years; so some of the people you know now could well be affected in the future.

Even more so, the second.

A collection of issues, but I believe this to be one, even if only indirectly.

[Andy Hall]

If you research it, you will discover that it is a recognised disability in its own right in U.S., essentially for demographic reasons - there are around 300,000 people with it there.

That's part of the reason and also because the numbers involved are relatively small in the UK because of the smaller population vs. the U.S.

I'm afraid so, yes.

I thought I did. However, I sometimes forget that most people haven't heard of PPS.

Of course it can, but before suggesting that it might be an idea to look into what can happen.

24 hour care? Doubt it, and probably doesn't need that. Realistically, she may get certain aids to use in the house - perhaps a stair lift - who knows. Unfortunately, social services departments really don't do that good a job in this kind of situation. You wouldn't believe the mountain of paperwork that has to be filled in and the cajoling required in order to get even the simplest thing.

I don't know for sure in her case, but would certainly give her the benefit of any doubt in terms of an inability to open a large and heavy door now that she perhaps was able to open in the past.

.. or even the lady concerned...

[Andy Hall]

In that, we will have to differ. I am convinced that she had a very good reason and that the law was inappropriately and insensitively applied.

It was a thread concerning what happens in respect of buildings in conservation areas. In that context, the discussion was very much on topic.

.. simply expressing a view.....

I may well raise a thread there at some point.

[Dave Stanton]

Just for the record Mary I work with a guy who had Polio at an early age and now has Post Polio Syndrome. Also my father had PPS the last few years before he died, he also contacted Polio at age 17. So it does exist and what Andy meant was not many doctors know of PPS as yet.

Dave

[Andy Hall]

Exactly.

This is an interesting article .

paragraph about the future (towards the end) has a very familiar ring to it...

[legin]

The planning permission is worded " Before any developement commences, representative samples of the type and colour of materials to be used on the external elevations of tyhe proposed dwelling shall be deposited with and approved in writing by the Local Planning Authority." It further states "The windows to the south east and north west elevations of the propsed dwelling hereby permitted, shall be glazed with obscure glass and not altered at any time thereafter unless agreed in writing with the Local Planning Authority."

Initially a meeting took place on site and the brick samples and slate samples were shown to the Planning Officer who agreed with the samples that were presented. The officer seemed quite relaxed about the build and when asked even admitted that they had omitted to insert the permitted developement clause!!

I will ring the officer today and arange a site visit.

Regards Legin

[Christian McArdle]

They're called conservation areas. Please don't buy a house in one. Some people have taste and don't want to live next to your plastic windowed stone clad monstrosity with a Sky dish on the front.

Christian.