The Politics of Parking Final Summary Report: Disabled People’s Encounters with Strangers in Accessible Parking Spaces

Abstract

This report presents a summary of the findings from the “Politics of Parking” PhD research project on disabled people’s encounters with strangers in Blue Badge parking spaces. The report highlights in detail how these encounters can make ‘accessible’ spaces anything but accessible. Encounters can be highly stressful, need a lot of work to navigate, and have an emotional impact that lasts long beyond the parking space. This report is based on PhD research which took place from 2021 to 2025, and the findings presented here come from a survey of 304 Blue Badge holders and 20 follow-up interviews with survey participants. The report· maps out different types of encounter that can take place and the broader contexts which can shape an individual encounter. It explores the experiences of navigating encounters and the impact this has on disabled people’s wellbeing and experiences of accessibility. The key takeaways from the report are that encounters can never exist outside the wider hostility that exists towards disabled people as a result of austerity politics and ‘scrounger’ rhetoric. Disabled people are thus always under scrutiny, due to harmful assumptions that disability should equal complete incompetence, poverty and suffering. Most disabled people can be seen as potentially not ‘deserving’ and can experience confrontation as a result