Disabled Persons Act 1981
| Year | 1981 |
Disabled Persons Act 1981
1981 CHAPTER 43
An Act to impose on highway authorities and other persons executing or proposing to execute works on highways a duty to have regard to the needs of disabled and blind persons; to amend the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1967 in relation to persons who improperly seek to avail themselves of concessions provided for disabled persons; to impose a duty on planning authorities in England and Wales to draw the attention of persons to whom they grant planning permission to certain statutory and other provisions relating to access for disabled persons to buildings and other premises used by the public; to require local authorities in England and Wales when serving a notice under section 20 of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976 to draw the attention of the person on whom it is served to certain statutory and other provisions relating to the needs of disabled persons; to make further provision for the display of signs giving information as to such access; to require the Secretary of State to lay before Parliament a report as to proposals for ensuring or facilitating the improvement of means of access to such buildings and premises; to amend the law relating to the duty to make provision for the needs of disabled persons using certain buildings and premises; to facilitate the making of corresponding amendments to the law of Northern Ireland; and for connected purposes.
[27th July 1981]
Be it enacted by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:—
Highways and road traffic
1 Needs of the disabled and blind.
(1) The following section shall be inserted after section 175 of the Highways Act 1980 and section 27 of the Roads (Scotland) Act 1970 , as section 175A of the former and section 27A of the latter:—
(1) In executing works in a street which may impede the mobility of disabled persons or blind persons highway authorities, local authorities and any other person exercising a statutory power to execute works on a highway shall have regard to the needs of such persons.
(2) Any such authority or person as is mentioned in subsection (1) above shall have regard to the needs of disabled persons and blind persons when placing lamp-posts, bollards, traffic-signs, apparatus or other permanent obstructions in a street.
(3) Highway authorities shall have regard to the needs of disabled persons when considering the desirability of providing ramps at appropriate places beween carriageways and footways.
(4) In executing in a street any such works as are mentioned in subsection (1) above, any such authority or person as is mentioned in that subsection shall have regard to the need of blind persons to have any openings, whether temporary or permanent, in the street, properly protected.
(5) Section 28 of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970 (power to define certain expressions for the purposes of provisions of that Act) shall have effect as if any reference in it to a provision of that Act included a reference to this section.’.
(2) The following paragraph shall be inserted in subsection (1) of section 50 of the Roads (Scotland) Act 1970, after the definition of ‘statutory undertakers’—
‘‘street’, for the purposes of section 27A of this Act, means a road or footpath;’.
2 Amendments of Road Traffic Regulation Act 1967 relating to misuse of concessions for the disabled.
(1) In the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1967—
(a ) in section 31 (provisions as to use of parking places provided under s. 28)—
(i) in subsection (3), for the word ‘In’ there shall be substituted the words ‘Subject to subsection (3A) below in’; and
(3A) A person who is guilty of an offence under subsection (3) above committed in a street parking place reserved for disabled persons' vehicles or in an off-street parking place reserved for such vehicles and who would not have been guilty of that offence if the motor vehicle in respect of which it was committed had been a disabled person's, vehicle shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding 50.’:
(b ) in section 42 (offences relating to parking places on highways where charge is made)—
(i) in subsection (1), for the word ‘subsection’ there shall be substituted the words ‘subsections (1A) and’; and
(1A) A person who is guilty of an offence under subsection (1) above committed in a street parking place reserved for disabled persons' vehicles and who would not have been guilty of that offence if the motor vehicle in respect of which it was committed had been a disabled person's vehicle shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding 50.’;
(c ) the following section shall be inserted after section 86:—
86A ‘Wrongful use of disabled person's badge.
(1) A person who is guilty of an offence in relation to a motor vehicle under a provision of this Act other than this section (‘the first offence’) is also guilty of an offence under this section if the conditions specified in subsection (2) below are satisfied.
(2) The conditions mentioned in subsection (1) above are that at the time of the commission of the first offence—
(a ) a disabled person's badge was displayed on the motor vehicle;
(b ) he was using the motor vehicle in circumstances where a disabled person's concession would be available to a disabled person's vehicle; and
(c ) the vehicle was not being used either by the person to whom the badge was issued or under section 21(4) (institutional use) of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Person's Act 1970.
(3) A person guilty of an offence under subsection (1) above shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding 200.
(4) In this section—
‘disabled person's badge’ means a badge of a form prescribed under section 21(1) of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970; and
‘disabled person's concession’ means—
(a ) an exemption from an order under this Act given by reference to disabled persons' vehicles; or
(b ) a provision made in any order under this Act for the use of a parking place by disabled persons' vehicles.’; and
(d ) in section 104 (general interpretation provisions), the following definition shall be inserted in subsection (1) after the definition of ‘designation order’:—
‘‘disabled person's vehicle’ means a vehicle lawfully displaying a badge of a form prescribed under section 21 of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970;’.
(2) Subsection (1) above shall not have effect in relation to offences committed before the commencement of this section.
Buildings etc
3 Duty to draw attention to provisions as to access—Planning.
3. The following sections shall be inserted after section 29 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1971:—
29A ‘Duty to draw attention to certain provisions for benefit of disabled.
(1) When granting planning permission for any development which will result in the provision—
(a ) of a building or premises to which section 4 of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970 applies (buildings or premises to which the public are to be admitted whether on payment or otherwise);
(b ) of any of the following, being in each case, premises in which persons are employed to work,—
(i) office premises, shop premises and railway premises to which the Offices, Shops and Railway Premises Act 1963 applies;
(ii) premises which are deemed to be such premises for the purposes of that Act; or
(iii) factories as defined by section 175 of the Factories Act 1961,
the local planning authority shall draw the attention of the person to whom the permission is...
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