This week on Which? Conversation: 23 August 2021

Crusader — I have considerable sympathy for your condition and the difficulties you encounter in life. It is though, and you presumably accept this, an exceedingly rare set of reactions to situations and circumstances. According to what you have told us, it combines misophonia with other intolerances, especially heat, to the point of insufferability. To a large extent they are unclassified within the general description of disability and, to most people, completely unknown. This must have a bearing on how the law is implemented.

I do not pretend to know all the provisions of the Equality Act 2010 but, like several others [such as the Health & Safety at Work laws] there is a test of reasonability in the obligations the Act places on those required to implement it. Service providers are required “to make reasonable adjustments” to the arrangements they make in order to meet and accommodate the needs of people with various ‘protected characteristics’, which include disabilities, in order to avoid placing such people at a disadvantage in the provision of their service.

However, there is a specific exclusion: the Act does not apply if the service provider can show that it did not know, and could not reasonably have been expected to know, that the disadvantaged person had the disability, and I suspect that that is almost universally the case in respect of the recognition of your condition.

The general requirement of the Act is that all service providers must “take such steps as it is reasonable to have to take to avoid the disadvantage”. This relies on judicial interpretation with regard to the specific circumstances. The service provider has a defence under the Act that a desired ‘adjustment’ is not ‘proportionate’.

You have mentioned several times previously that travel is a very difficult experience for you because of your acute sensitivities to certain sounds, especially from some other people and from broadcast material of particular types. For travel to be satisfactory, if not necessarily enjoyable, you require isolation from other passengers in a compartment either solo or possibly with others who require similar protection. On trains this would be practically possible: so long as a reservation process was in place this could possibly work, albeit at considerable expense to the operators, but whether it would be a reasonable expectation is questionable. The loss of capacity on every commuter or inter-city train by the inclusion of such a compartment in one or more of the carriages would be an issue that would invite the argument of proportionality to be tested given the exceedingly low prevalence of your condition — although that is not to say that making such provision for you would not at the same time be a potential benefit for some other people with similar intolerances or protected characteristics.

I can well imagine that the train operating companies would argue that the implied exemptions under the Act allow them not to have to make separate physical provision for such a minority condition as yours. Whether they should make some alternative travel arrangements for you if you inform them of your condition, so they cannot claim they did not know you had a disability, is debatable. They would probably suggest you make your own private arrangements although that would probably be much more expensive than a train ticket, but my feeling is that most people would not consider that to be an unreasonable reaction.

You have also complained in the past about the glazing in the roofs of some buildings like railway stations that intensifies the solar gain and makes you extremely uncomfortable with heavy perspiration. I am not sure what can be done in such places other than provide shaded or air-conditioned places where people can wait. The extreme heat of enclosed glass-covered spaces is something we all have to endure at times.

You have also referred to similar problems in motor coaches which have translucent roof panels. Public service buses rarely have such features in my experience but touring and excursion coaches usually do. It would be practically possible to fit such vehicles with louvres or blinds that could be adjusted to shade the glare while still allowing ventilation, but you would need to inform the operator in advance that you would require such facilities. Passenger vehicles designed specifically to provide panoramic vistas would presumably remain unacceptable to you but I cannot see what possible adjustment could be made to mitigate the disadvantage and you would rightly feel that you were excluded from experiencing such a journey.

There are, unfortunately, hundreds of thousands of people who, on account of their disabilities, cannot reasonably expect to enjoy all the experiences available to others, notwithstanding the Equality Act, and I suppose they reconcile themselves to that situation.

I am sorry that your attempts to raise this issue with MP’s, representative bodies, and other organisations have not been fruitful or given you any meaningful responses. I would urge you, however, to give up your criticism of the prevailing approach to disability exclusion as being all about “white sticks and wheelchairs”; I can appreciate your frustration, but it does not endear you to those who are probably likely to be the most sympathetic to your cause.

At the end of the day there is absolutely NO excuses for “not knowing” about folk like me, but far too much is being done to only suppress all knowledge of such folk, and they’re not even covered by statistics which they SHOULD be. And under the so-called “equality” act service providers, whether it’s transport or shops, or stations etc, there is a legal requirement to anticipate IN ADVANCE what disabled people will need, and NOT wait until it’s far too late and people are EXcluded, that is illegal, but it’s happening on an industrial scale. This is the information age so there is no excuse for not knowing about stuff that the service providers need to know, but they all just don’t want to know, and it’s a far too widespread culture which must change. And the buses on the main route past my home and elsewhere a few miles away nearly all have full length skylights because they’ve been introduced by a french multinational who bought the operator back in january 2018 and they arrogantly brag about it as if it was some kind of “luxury” and they insist that it’s now “impossible” to sort it out regardless of legal obligations. Well it’s NOT impossible, as there is such a thing as heat reflective glass which has been around for years so there’s no excuse for not knowing about it, but they just don’t want to know, they just assume that everybody, regardless of disability, has a body just like a reptile, all cold-blooded and always desperately seeking brutal frying heat as so many here in Britain constantly do and I can’t help noticing how so many here in east lancs. carry on wearing great big thick heavily insulating winter coats, always in matt black for maximum heat absorbance even when there’s absolutely BRUTAL HOT sun well in excess of 20c! So they casually and wrongly assume that everybody is the same and expect them to be. AND because so many including plenty of “disabled” folk so thoroughly revel in raucous rowdiness the operators again just casually and of course WRONGLY assume that again “everybody” is the same in that category. Well there’s an old saying about assumption, that it’s the “mother of foul-ups” and of course it is. So there is absolutely NO excuses, and the “equality” act defines disability as ANY long term condition which adversely affects a person’s ability to carry out everyday tasks, like travelling and shopping etc. so it does NOT mean just conditions affecting mobility and hearing and/or sight etc. but all sorts. But it seems far too many of them in power and control, both public and private and at every level just see folk like me as some kind of “plebs” who are less than human and therefore have no rights and don’t matter. Well that is so NOT the case! Just what on earth have so many fought and suffered and DIED for in so many brutal conflicts? To protect and maintain our democracy which as I need to remind my local mp is NOT “subject to status” here in Britain, it applies to ALL who are registered to vote as I am and so are plenty of other disabled folk of all kinds. It’s not like applying for credit or a trade account etc. it’s a RIGHT! People like me are NOT some kind of “subspecies” who don’t have any such rights and such people DO matter. AND the media need to stop being so outrageously prejudiced as well and start giving folk like me an EQUAL voice and stop locking them out as they constantly do and I must’ve written to them at least a HUNDRED times if not more so they’ve no excuses either. And of course folk like me have to pay the licence fee too so should have equal representation. But it all looks like just another case of “don’t rock the boat”, and “don’t make waves” etc. and “maintain the status quo” etc. Well it’s about time someone tipped the boat right over! And I hope someone senior at Which? reads this too and takes it seriously.

We like to stay in Cape Coral, a huge residential area in Florida. It doesn’t feel like a concrete jungle, is never crowded, and shopping is dotted around in mostly small malls. If one mall doesn’t have what you want, another probably will.

If you paste this reference into Google maps this is a typical small mall around a supermarket.
26.5611586,-82.0075963

These malls all have free parking and the only time it has been a problem to park was Xmas Eve. This mall has a Staples, another might have a different large store. There are larger malls, but these types of smaller ones could be built around the edges of our towns.

Many of our town centres are no longer fit for purpose and I blame council meddling for that. Street narrowing, traffic rerouting, traffic calming that creates snail-paced flows of traffic, pedestrian zones, no on-street parking, expensive car parks that can take forever to get in and out of – if they even have free spaces . . . . . These measures might make it safer for pedestrians, but at what cost?

Need something from the centre of town? You used to be able to nip in, find somewhere to park and be home again in a flash. But no longer. These days you need to allow half a day. Out-of-town parking saves the hassle of getting to the High Street, but buses might only run every half an hour, they might be full at busy times and they might not go where you want to be – so a long walk.