DISABLED pensioner May Chadwick is right to be angry. For she's a victim of bureaucratic barminess. As an arthritis sufferer, she had to be pushed about in a wheelchair for years. Suddenly, she regained her independence and freedom - thanks to a council-run scheme that lends motorised buggies to disabled shoppers.

But the very same council is stopping her from going where she wants.

Standing in her way is that town hall jobsworth's delight - a planning regulation.

For though Mary's bank, the NatWest in King William Street in town-centre Blackburn, wants to build a ramp for the disabled, Blackburn with Darwen Council will not allow it.

Twice, they have refused planning permission.

A ramp would not be in keeping with the bank's listed building, they said.

And it would block the pavement and be an obstruction for the visually-impaired.

But this is unbending bunkum.

A stone's throw up the same street stands the fine old listed town hall with a huge - and necessary - ramp recently stuck on its front. And outside it and, indeed, all over the town - highlighted by the council's vicious and hypocritical crackdown on shopkeepers' A-board pavement signs - are obstructions galore in the form of bollards, metal gates and statues, put there and blessed with consent by the council.

Not only is this a stupid, short-sighted and inflexible attitude, its consequences are doubly so when the council runs a scheme to help the disabled get about the town-centre and then hinders them.

They should come off it.

The blind and visually impaired cope with all the obstructions the council puts in their way and a ramp at the NatWest bank in King William Street would hardly block the pavement even if it was railed off to stop people tripping over it - since the pavement extends the width of the whole pedestrianised street.

Visual impact? Well, if the listed town hall can be sensitively adapted to include a ramp, so can the grand old NatWest building.

There's the answer to Mary's misery - the commonsense approach.

Now, will these town hall no-can-do sorts take off their blinkers and employ it?

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.