Nottingham City Council says there has been a software glitch that is affecting Blue Badge applications
A disabled Nottingham woman says she is now “scared” to go out as she faces a delay on getting her new Blue Badge thanks to a software glitch.
The permits allow people with mobility issues and other disabilities to park closer to their destination by using accessible bays and they also offer several parking concessions.
Benefits include free parking at on-street parking meters and pay-and-display bays, as well as up to three hours of parking on single or double yellow lines.
Geraldine Chesta, who lives in Beechdale, suffers with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and has therefore become highly reliant on her Blue Badge.
The permits usually have to be renewed every three years and Ms Chesta’s badge was due to expire on December 12.
The 45-year-old therefore applied for a new one way back in September and paid the small administrative fee to Nottingham City Council in early November – yet is still without her new Blue Badge after the expiration of her old one.
The city council says the Department for Transport has been updating Blue Badge software to ensure compliance and that this has “led to some delays in applications being processed.”
Although badges are still being processed by the city council, the authority says “some are taking a little longer than usual.”
Ms Chesta said: “I think it will affect everybody. What I’ve ended up doing is writing a note to put on my car for the traffic wardens to hopefully look on kindly.
“I’ve just reached a dead end. I don’t know what they expect me to do.”
Ms Chesta, who lives on a low income, says public transport is a difficult option for her and that the Blue Badge delay will affect many of her Christmas plans.
The city council can temporarily exempt an expired badge from enforcement, but only within the Nottingham City Council area and not on private land like hospital car parks and shopping centres.
Yet without the authority issuing a temporary badge, Ms Chesta fears she will constantly be having to battle fines if she carries on with her normal routine and she is therefore limiting how often she goes out.
Her partner, Rik Thirlwall, said: “Sympathy isn’t going to pay the parking fines. If there’s multiple fines to have to fight, that in itself is going to be difficult. I just don’t think they’re helping Geraldine at all.”
Ms Chesta says she has not had a fine yet in the first week of being without her Blue Badge, but added: “Whether the traffic wardens are going to be understanding every time, I don’t know.
“Every time I go out, I’m scared I’m going to walk to a car with a yellow sticker on it, I am really scared of it.”
Nottingham City Council added that the Department for Transport will never issue a Blue Badge more than a week before it expires, but that it has reordered Ms Chesta’s badge this week and “hopes to have it with her very soon”, though the authority was unable to put a firmer timeframe on it.
Although the Department for Transport sets the legislation governing England’s Blue Badge scheme, it is local councils that are solely responsible for administering the scheme locally and ordering the badges.
All local councils have access to a national service used to process applications and issue or renew badges, with this national service being unaffected by the software issues mentioned by the city council.
Some councils choose to use third-party providers to process Blue Badges and it is understood that some of these providers were not meeting compliance standards, hence the recent software updates that have been causing delays, yet it is understood councils like Nottingham can still use the unaffected national service to renew badges.
Ms Chesta added: “I’m going out a lot less because I’m just scared I’m going to get a fine, it is definitely restricting me.”
