A meeting on the future of Kirkcaldy town centre should include discussions on disabled access, campaigners have insisted.
Maureen Closs from Access 4 All said a proposal to restrict access for disabled drivers and other vehicles would have a detrimental impact on business.
Ms Closs started the campaign group in protest at Fife Council’s plan to ban all traffic including blue badge holders from the High Street pedestrianised zone from 10am to 5pm, giving disabled people just one hour to shop.
The proposal received the unanimous backing of Kirkcaldy area committee in March, although Labour members later claimed they had not been given all the information needed to make an informed decision.
The local authority had stated the ban would make the High Street safer for everybody, a claim dismissed by Access 4 All, which branded the move ”discrimination”.
The proposal was the subject of a public consultation which came to an end on April 20, and the plan was to bring the issue back to an area committee after the May election.
It now looks likely to be on the agenda for the August meeting and will be discussed in full then.
Ms Closs and other objectors hope that, having had a chance to consider it, councillors will reject it.
Branding the proposed 9-10am timeslot offered to blue badge holders ”totally inappropriate”, she said: ”Disabled drivers will have to share this very limited access with delivery vans, service vehicles and local residents.
”This has the potential for complete pandemonium and, we would submit, would increase significantly the likelihood of accidents.
”Many disabled people find it impossible to be up at this time of the morning because of home care, their conditions etc.
”We did our own investigation and found 90% of shopkeepers had not been consulted on this. Disabled people are customers too and if we can’t get to the shops then of course it will have an impact on business.
”Kirkcaldy High Street has enough problems without banning sections of society from it.”
The Kirkcaldy area committee’s previous chairwoman, Alice Soper, always made it clear the issue was not a done deal and conceded the access times may have to be rethought. However, Ms Closs said the rethink should happen as soon as possible and that it should be raised at the meeting at the town house on Thursday.
Current Kirkcaldy area committee chairman Councillor Neil Crooks will open the meeting.
He said: ”We’ve not set any agenda for what people can talk about so anything could be raised. The report on the traffic regulation order wasn’t ready for the area committee meeting this month so I’ve asked for it to be on the agenda for the August meeting.”
He added: ”From discussions we had at an informal meeting with Access 4 All and various others, it seemed totally inappropriate to attempt to have disabled access for only the first hour in the morning.”