00:00Royd is 67 years old and has bilateral arthritis in both of his knees.
00:05At his medical consultation in December, he was told he has 75% bone-on-bone contact,
00:11meaning he's unable to walk more than three metres without support
00:14or bear weight without feeling excruciating pain.
00:17In August, Kent County Council rejected his renewal for a blue badge,
00:21leaving Royd frustrated.
00:23I spoke to him during his appeal.
00:25They based the rejection on assumptions that at some stage,
00:29sometime in the future, I will be receiving medical treatment.
00:32Okay, then when am I having this treatment?
00:34What is my recuperation period?
00:36When, when, when?
00:37So you make an assumption, I cannot properly walk.
00:40I struggle, stop, I'm pained, I drag my feet.
00:43And the frustrating part is the deadly silence from KCC.
00:48It's shocking.
00:49Living alone, Royd relies on his furniture to get around.
00:53First thing which I do is using the walker, obviously,
00:55to then lift myself up from a sofa or furniture.
00:59And because I live, I'm very fortunate to have a very compact area for living,
01:03I then generally just use the walker to,
01:06oh, hang on.
01:10And then onto the chair to support myself.
01:13Since I last spoke to Royd,
01:15Kent County Council have accepted his application for his blue badge renewal.
01:19But he says the entire process has made him extremely angry
01:22and motivated him to investigate what accessibility actually means to the council.
01:27So that's exactly what he's doing.
01:29And he's putting his findings in a book.
01:31Everybody has different abilities.
01:33Everybody has different requirements.
01:34And they're using a standard model,
01:36which is not acceptable for everybody's use.
01:40When were you checking things?
01:41When were you communicating between the departments?
01:43This time next year, I'm going through the same process.
01:46So this is why I'm now determined to drill down into the system
01:50to actually find out what has actually happened,
01:53how it has happened, and how it can be prevented.
01:55In response, Kent County Council said,
02:23KCC considers requests for reasonable adjustments
02:26and accessibility support throughout the application and assessment process.
02:30Adjustments are considered on a case-by-case basis
02:32and all requests are considered individually.
02:35In some cases,
02:36eligibility can only be determined through a face-to-face assessment.
02:40We encourage applicants to provide as much information as possible
02:43at the point of application to support a timely and accurate decision.
02:46With his blue badge due to expire again next year,
02:50Royd plans to publish his book
02:51in the hope that he and others won't have to fight for accessibility
02:55again.
02:56Naila Mahamid for KMTV in Capella Fun.
