Dsabled Access To Manx Glens.

[Charles Flynn]

Next month the Friends of the Glens is launching an appeal to improve the path at Glen Helen to enable those with various difficulties to have better access to it.

 

I have put details about it in My Blog and for further information you can visit:

 

www.manxglens.org.im

 

It seems to me to be a very worthwhile project which will enable almost anyone to enjoy the beauty of one of our national treasures.

[LoneWolf]

Next month the Friends of the Glens is launching an appeal to improve the path at Glen Helen to enable those with various difficulties to have better access to it.

 

I have put details about it in My Blog and for futher information you can visit:

 

www.manxglens.org.im

 

It seems to me to be a very worthwhile project which will enable almost anyone to enjoy the beauty of one of our national treasures.

 

Nice one [again] Charles. I sometimes wonder if the Manx Government couldnt do a lot more for disabled access in public buildings, national glens, and any other area it holds responsibility for.

[Foxtrotlima]

Charles, PM for you

[Charles Flynn]

I am satisfied in this case that there will be the minimal interruption to the natural environment whilst allowing access to those people who cannot normally enjoy it.

 

Much of our countryside is as beautiful as it is because our farmers have managed it. Left to its wild state, which some of course might find attractive, the scenery would be very different.

[Charles Flynn]

StuartT

 

No problem with that - great to hear it.

 

But I also want room for the wild as well as places where people who are not so fortunate as you and me can go.

[Alias]

Yes, either highly wooded, or covered in bracken or heather. But I find that attractive. I prefer the wild side of nature, not the parody of it made by man.

Parody? Somebody has to do it..

[Gladys]

I may be ill-informed here, but ALL the glens in the IOM were planted in the 19th century, so whilst we all enjoy our glens, lets just think on! The fact is there were so few trees on the IOM that stone plinths were used as gate posts, and THAT is the traditional Manx gatepost of slate which you see everywhere.

 

We are very fortunate to enjoy a rich and varied landscape, but much of it had been created by man, not nature. They did very well (perhaps, better than we are doing now) and it enhances our countryside now.

 

I'm with Charles, even just an access to have a look would be good!

[Rog]

Here on the Mainland the pandering to cripples is being taken to ridiculous lengths.

 

There must be a point when a persons disability is such that it should case of ‘tough luck, son, you simply can’t get to / do that’, or a recognition that the owner of a premises has the RIGHT to decide if he wants to obstruct a sector of the public as the costs of not doing so are unreasonable for the likely return on investment.

 

Access to all. or even most things for everybody is fine in theory but there does need to be common sense applied.

 

For some things the effect of providing access for cripples simply doesn’t make fiscal sense or, as has been written, so impinges on the essence of a place that such access results in a loss of enjoyment for the MAJORITY of users.

[Gladys]

I have been used to seeing your controverisal posts and have taken issue with you several times. But this one I find deeply offensive.

 

My mother suffered a stroke almost three years ago. Up until that time she was active, highly intelligent and articulate and a great participant in many activities, not least in Manx culture, heritage and nature.

 

The stroke left her with partial paralysis down one side of her body and, sadly for someone who was so articulate, disphasia. Towards the end of her stay in hospital, we were called to a meeting with the various medicos involved and were told that they would not recommend her to return home due to the limitations on her mobility and an impairment of cognitive skills, but that we should look for a home for her. Anyway, my mother being the kind of lady she is, decided that being put in a home is not what she wanted and within two weeks she had convinced the staff that she was capable of looking after herself safely in her own home. That she has done for over two years now, up until recently when she has come to live with us because things were getting too much for her.

 

She is disabled, apart from the loss of movement down her right side, she is also very frail. Taking her out with the family is difficult, because of her limited physical ability. But to be able to drive into some of the glens so that she could look from the car or nearby while we walked down the glen would be helpful.

 

I don't think anyone would suggest that wheelchair ramps should be installed throughout the glens, just some provision so that people with limited mobility can continue to enjoy at least a look at them, would be welcome.

 

I find your use of the word cripple offensive, almost as though people with disabilities should be cast out of the community and left to rot! My mum was a teacher and throughout her stay in hospital was visited by many nurses whom she had taught biology because they had an immense amount of respect for her and her love of the subject that set them on the vocation they had followed. Considering the contribution she has made in her own small way, I think a little more respect is deserved rather than being referred to as a "cripple".

 

Now, having fought that personal corner, I cannot do anything but support improved access (that's all, not necessarily full use) for all disabled to many of the natural and public facilities that exist.

 

Your post has confirmed that you are a small-minded and mean-spirited person, with little humanity in you.

 

You may also like to look at the use of the word "fiscal", it is normally used in a taxation context, not financial as I think you mean in your post.

[James Anderton]

I regularly walk up Glen Helen with my kids who still are of an age to treat it as an adventure. I particularly like the rugged paths on the far side, the logs across the river and the hermits cave. I dont know what the plans are but if you concrete or tarmac a country walk it stops being a country walk and becomes something else.

 

I reckon once you do this it probably will attract a very minor number of disabled people but will create an influx of families on push bikes who are not up to mountain biking, couch potato dog walkers who will see it as an alternative to letting the dog turd on the promenade or in the garden and high heel wearing trekkers in their sunday best,

 

 

Personally once it happens i will not bother going there and move on to some other glen.

 

9/10 for a bad idea.

 

By the way i suffer from claustrophobia, not my fault I've had it all my life. Consequently I hear that they have opened a section of the Laxey mines to the public and I'm told it is really interesting. Obviously i cant go in. Could you fix it for me to have the tunnel widened to at least 15 feet and 20 feet high. I dont see why i have to miss out on a good thing when others can enjoy it.

[Doric]

Well at least Rog didn't call them raspberries, that would be going too far.

[Gladys]

I did reply "He's still a tosser." but deleted it!

[Rog]

I did reply "He's still a tosser." but deleted it!

 

Why?

 

There's more than a few would agree with you! (at times and usually in retrospect even me!)

 

But that aside, there's nothing offensive in the use of the word cripple beyond the dislike some people have for the use of a description of a condition as a noun.

 

It is nonetheless acceptable in English language and the use of the word to refer to someone who has problems with mobility is perfectly correct linguistically, more so in fact than the use of the term 'epileptic' when referring to people who are affected by epilepsy.

 

Me? I suffer from bouts of arthritis that at times severely restrict MY mobility and I make no bones about being a cripple at such times because I am.

 

Edited to add -----

 

“Your post has confirmed that you are a small-minded and mean-spirited person, with little humanity in you.”

 

I had to laugh at that bit! Both things that you accuse me of are attributes that I hold in high esteem!

 

Also I did mean fiscal. Think it through.

[Charles Flynn]

The idea is to make access more accessible on one side only. The far side of the river will remain at it is now. So if you want to walk on the wild side - that will still be your prvilege.

 

I have no difficulties in people with disabilities being able to use the glen. Seeing more people enjoying themselves makes me happy and I look forward to the day when this project is completed.

[Rog]

It’s fine and proper to enable people with some disabilities to access things but there issues that have emerged from experience over here and in the US, the home of the Politically Correct.

 

For example. do you draw the line regarding disabilities? It’s one thing to provide handrails over rough terrain for people who have some difficulty walking, or providing a surface that gives wheelchair users access but it doesn’t stop there. What happens to those with other disabilities such as quadriplegia. Or Tourette syndrome?

 

This is a VERY dangerous area to attempt to legislate within as sure as eggs the moment that one group gets catered for another group will start whinging about ‘unfairness’ and be totally oblivious to the fact that the majority who DON’T need tax payers money spent on them are having to subsidise the small minority who attract often large scale spending when simply telling them “Sorry, mate – you cant walk? You cant go there” would be the sensible thing to do.

 

Apart from the fiscal aspects there is the matter of aesthetics. A path through a glen is more about the state of the path – it’s about the environment. To have a path that is ‘wheelchair’ friendly will of necessity have a significant impact on the environment.

 

On top of that there are those of us, and I’m one, who don’t want to see some wheelchair bound twisted individual drooling and jabbering when we go on a visit to a place of beauty. Sorry if it offends but there it is.

 

Life is unfair. It’s unfair that there are some people who are cripples – tough. That’s life. The present situation where there seems to be an imperative that EVERONE should have access to EVERYTHING is in my opinion simply nonsensical. Go down that path and it’ll prove to e a VERY slippery slope.

 

What next? “You’ve made “X” wheel-chair friendly – now I want a recorded commentary of what I can’t see ‘cos I’m blind” or ‘I want a description of the sounds that I can’t hear’. Or ‘My gurney and my portable ventilator won’t fit through that gate’

 

Believe me, it’ll come. Just as soon as some politician decides he or she can gain a few more votes by being ‘user friendly’ to some group or another by supporting a minority cause, or creating one TO support.