Activist makes history by taking disabled transport case to highest court in the land

Bus companies could be forced to make space for wheelchair users as a landmark test case made history in the Supreme Court this week.

Disabled activist Doug Paulley’s action is the first the Supreme Court has heard concerning disability discrimination in the provision of services.

As reported on the Disability News Service website, Paulley, from Wetherby in Yorkshire, took action in 2012 after a bus driver refused to make a woman with a pushchair vacate a space allocated for wheelchairs.

His action, funded by England and Wales’s Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), calls for wheelchair-users to have priority in using wheelchair spaces and that transport companies must end their “first come, first served” policies.

It’s not right that I, and other wheelchair-users, should be nervously looking to see if anybody is in the wheelchair space - Doug Paulley

Paulley originally won his county court case against First Bus in 2013 but that ruling was overturned by the court of appeal the following year –which led him to the Supreme Court.

A ruling on the case is expected next year.

He said: “It’s not right that I, and other wheelchair-users, should be nervously looking to see if anybody is in the wheelchair space and wondering what will happen. This can cause a great deal of distress.

“Wheelchair spaces are the only place on the bus that wheelchair-users can travel in; if they aren’t available, wheelchair-users can’t travel.

“This is the single biggest barrier experienced by wheelchair-users when accessing transport, and most wheelchair-users experience this.

“Bus companies need to have clear policies so that we can have a culture where non-disabled people automatically move to other areas.

“More needs to be done to ensure that this space is available to wheelchair-users when needed.”

Rebecca Hilsenrath, EHRC’s chief executive, said that “priority should mean priority”, and added: “We are saying that bus companies must uphold their responsibility and make it very clear to travellers that those spaces are intended for wheelchairs.”

Giles Fearnley, managing director of First Bus, said: “The previous judgment of the court of appeal gave much needed clarification around the priority use of the wheelchair space on board buses, following two previous conflicting rulings.

“We hope that the judgment of the Supreme Court will maintain that clarity for our customers, drivers and the wider industry.

“We believe that our current policy, which is to ask other customers in the strongest polite terms to make.”