Dear LPG,

Until now I have not really thought about it much, but we all know how much harder it is to get a blue badge no matter what your disability these days.  For a while before the turn of this century we heard many more stories about the people who were using disability to abuse the system rather than about those that are genuinely disabled and being refused one. 

We know that they are designed to help those who would not otherwise be able to visit certain key venues in the borough, but I think that the abuse goes both ways. I am nearly sure that they were once available for anyone over the age of 85 but I have no doubt that, because there are so many more of us these days, the government decided to revoke that. 

I have recently had an operation on my knee. Having already had the procedure on the other one I knew that, for a while after the surgery, there would be a period of time where I would be unable to walk very well.    This is the second leg that has been operated on and I am now ninety years old.  I did not realise that it would take so much longer for me to heal this time and, as has been said before on your pages, the feeling of imprisonment and dependency is one of the worst side effects of not being mobile and having to depend on people to get you out of the house.

I have friends but, although they would be happy to get me to the shops during this healing period,  the lack of access especially to the Lewisham Riverdale centre now that the roundabout has gone, has made it really difficult for them to get me close enough to shops, or my bank, or for me to get there purely because of the fact that the government has not recognised that for that post-operative period we are as disabled as any other blue badge holder. 

So, in the light of how many older people have hip and knee replacements and then leave hospital to return to a home where they live alone, I feel that the government should implement a temporary blue badge scheme to help those who could to be more independent at a time, just after surgery, when getting back to normal is crucial to the healing process.

PB, Lewisham