Dr. Sarah Rock:

Yes, it certainly formed part of our study. Blackrock was quite limited in that regard, in that there were no changes to the amount of disabled parking spots that were there originally. We were really only able to look at the things that changed rather than do an assessment of what was there before and if that was good enough. We were looking more at the impact of change. It certainly arose as a very important issue. We noted what the council endeavoured to do, which was through our interviews. We interviewed a number of different people including members of the public participation network and the disability consultation group. Although things were not perfect, we found that there was an appreciation of the openness of the local authority to engage with them on those issues. I am aware that there was some trial and error around the location of the disabled parking spots. This is the absolute critical thing when we are looking at road space reallocation. If we are looking at pedestrianised areas or shared street spaces we must prioritise, where possible, the disabled access parking spaces. In addition, we looked at other aspects such as access to chemists and pharmacies where traditionally there would not have been a disabled access parking spot outside of those areas. We noted that by moving some general parking spots it could reduce the accessibility to those types of users and people who would depend on them. One of the solutions was the use of a set-down or a loading space that would allow people to access those spaces. That was a very important part of it. It is certainly something that we fed into the research and into the recommendations for that also.