Sue Bott, director of development for Disability Rights UK (DR UK), had been given tickets to the event in the Olympic Stadium by the Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS), and told them in advance that she was a guide dog-user.

But she was given two seats in the middle of a row where there was not enough space for a guide dog to sit at her feet.

As a result, she asked other spectators to move so she could sit in the aisle seat, with her guide dog Faith beside her on the steps.

Bott was first approached by a member of staff halfway through the opening ceremony, as the Queen was about to declare the games officially open, and was told that Faith was a “health and safety” issue.

She said: “At first I thought it was a bit of a wind-up, but then I realised she was actually serious.

“I really got quite cross and in the end I said to her, ‘I hear what you are saying. I don’t agree and I am not going to take any notice.’ I actually missed the Queen opening the games.”

She was later approached again, this time by a London 2012 manager, who told her that Faith, who was sitting quietly beside her on the steps, was a “health and safety hazard”.

Bott said: “I told her that she was interfering with my enjoyment of the evening. She was saying, ‘suppose we have to evacuate the stadium?’ and I said, ‘I would get out easier with a guide dog.’”

By this time, there were empty seats beside Bott and her daughter, Angela – who had accompanied her and was describing the action to her – so they moved along and Faith sat in front of one of the vacant seats. But there was still so little room that part of the seat in front kept hitting Faith’s paws.

Bott said: “I just felt totally humiliated. It was ridiculous. If Faith is a hazard then so is every disabled person and every wheelchair-user.

“I am still struggling to believe it. It just feels like a bad dream. I would not have expected that kind of treatment in a million years.”

Bott was even more disappointed because earlier in the day she had enjoyed taking part in the Paralympic torch relay as part of a five-strong team of disabled people from DR UK.

She said the treatment she received in the stadium “really took me back to years gone by”, and added: “What it does prove is that we still need our disabled people’s organisations fighting for our rights. We cannot relax for a moment.”

A DCMS spokeswoman said she believed it was her department’s fault that Bott had been given a seat in the wrong section of the stadium, which was not accessible to guide dog-users.

But she has so far failed to comment on the attitude of London 2012 staff in the Olympic Stadium.

A LOCOG spokesman said: “If it was a health and safety issue it is something we have to take extremely seriously.”

He has so far failed to comment further.

source: John Pring: Disability News Service: 30 August 2012

The ceremony has been widely-praised, particularly for the performance of its 73 professional Deaf and disabled performers and the work of its two disabled co-directors, Jenny Sealey and Bradley Hemmings.

But it was clear that nearly all of the volunteer cast of 3,250 who took part – ranging from 10 to 80 years of age – were not disabled people.

Two months ago, the London 2012 organising committee LOCOG said that about 100 disabled people had auditioned for the Paralympic opening ceremony and “almost all” had been successful, as part of a cast of 3,000 adults and 100 children.

But LOCOG now says that only 68 of 3,250 volunteers were disabled people, including just 27 wheelchair-users, only three people with learning difficulties, and just one with autism.

Volunteers rehearsed for an average of 85 hours each.

LOCOG refused to comment on the number of disabled volunteers, other than to refer Disability News Service to the comments it made in June.

There was heavy criticism of LOCOG at the time over the “inappropriate” demands it was placing on potential disabled volunteers, including a call for people with “huge amounts of energy”, and its initial failure to say whether it would fund the travel and support costs of disabled volunteers.

But it claimed then that “almost everyone who auditioned who has a disability has been successful” in becoming a volunteer performer.

Ju Gosling, director of Together! 2012, the free disability arts and human rights festival taking place less than a mile from the Olympic Stadium during the Paralympics, said she was “really shocked” that the number of disabled volunteer performers was “even lower than originally thought”.

She said: “I’m particularly appalled that only three out of 3,000 performers had learning difficulties, given the world-class companies such as Anjali Dance Company and Magpie Dance who could have been featured prominently.”

She added: “How can London 2012 square this with the promise of Boris Johnson (London’s Conservative mayor) to host the most diverse and inclusive games ever?

“It would have been perfectly possible to choreograph and rehearse the ceremony in such a way as to have 100 per cent of the performers being either disabled, carers or personal assistants.”

She added: “Given all of the public money that has been invested in the games, we also had a right to expect that ‘legacy’ considerations would be paramount, but there is nothing in these figures to suggest legacy issues have been considered at all.”

The Together! festival is led by the UK Disabled People’s Council, and includes a preview of Ian Farrant’s exhibition of photographs of disabled athletes, and performances by Sign Dance Collective and the internationally-renowned Indian guitarist Benny Prasad and US comedian David Roche.

Together! is taking place between 29 August and 9 September, with some events being held during Disability History Month later this year.

source: John Pring: Disability News Service: 30 August 2012

As the first 60 members of the 300-strong ParalympicsGB team arrived in the athletes’ village this week, and with the opening ceremony just six days away, the London 2012 organising committee LOCOG appears to have made no effort to resolve the concerns of disabled parents planning to attend the games.

Disabled actor Melissa Chapin has been trying to work with LOCOG for the last fortnight to resolve concerns that she and other wheelchair-using parents with Paralympic tickets will not be able to sit with their children and friends.

She has been asking LOCOG to take steps to ensure that more wheelchair-users who bring their children with them to venues such as the ExCeL centre – which has mostly unreserved seating – will be able to sit next to them.

She has tickets for two days of competition at Excel – which is hosting sports such as sitting volleyball, powerlifting, table-tennis and boccia – on September 2 and 3.

On the first day, she will be joined by a wheelchair-using British Falklands veteran, her seven-year-old twins, and two personal assistants, but there is no guarantee that they are going to be able to sit together.

She has already been contacted on Twitter by 10 other disabled parents with similar concerns.

She believes LOCOG will not be able to rely on its volunteers – or “games makers” – to resolve problems on the day, because they will be swamped by disabled parents with similar seating needs.

Chapin has also pointed out that LOCOG stopped wheelchair-users from buying tickets through its website last November, forcing them instead to use an 0844 telephone number, as reported by Disability News Service.

She said this had made it impossible for disabled parents to buy tickets for themselves and their children.

LOCOG has so far refused to work with Chapin to find a solution to her concerns, or to comment on the issue to Disability News Service.

Chapin said: “It is becoming a human rights issue. It is almost impossible to make me crack, but the cracks are starting to show. The twins couldn’t believe this was happening to their mum in this day and age.”

She believes LOCOG is breaching the Equality Act and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Meanwhile, LOCOG has struggled to explain why it chose four of the most inaccessible spots in the United Kingdom to light its four Paralympic flames.

The flames were lit by groups of scouts at the summits of the highest peaks of Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The four flames are being transferred to the four capital cities, where they will be the focus of a day of “flame celebrations”, before they are brought together into a single flame at a ceremony in Stoke Mandeville. A 24-hour relay will then take the single flame to the opening ceremony in east London.

A LOCOG spokesman said the idea of scaling the four peaks was about “showing what people can achieve”, and that they had “wanted to do something different and unique rather than replicate the Olympic torch relay”.

He said the idea would have come from the “creatives” in LOCOG’s torch relay team, but he said: “I don’t know specifically who had that idea.”

He added: “Unfortunately it was not going to be accessible to everybody but we tried to ensure that all the groups involved had a mixture [of disabled and non-disabled people].”

He said he believed that three of the mountaineers who took part in the flame-lighting events and “at least two or three” of each of the four groups of scouts were disabled people.

source: John Pring: Disability News Service: 23 August 2012

Daniel Roque Hall, from north London, was stopped by UK Border Force officers at Heathrow airport last November with almost three kilogrammes of cocaine hidden in his wheelchair.

Roque Hall is a full-time wheelchair-user and at home has a 24-hour care package. He experiences pain and muscle spasms, fatigue, heart problems, diabetes, and difficulty with speech and swallowing, as a result of the life-limiting condition Friedreich’s ataxia (FA).

But since he began his three-year sentence at Wormwood Scrubs prison in June – after the governor assured the judge his prison could provide the support Roque Hall needed – his family say he has received nothing more than basic care.

They are seeking a judicial review of the decision to keep him in prison, but a high court judge has already decided in an interim ruling that Roque Hall is not allowed access to his own specialist doctors.

Roque Hall usually carries out exercises – with the aid of a support worker – that help him maintain muscle strength, ease his pain, and prevent further deterioration to his health.

But he has apparently been denied access to any exercise equipment in the prison hospital wing, where he is being kept.

His mother, Anne Hall, said: “He has lost a huge amount of muscle mass. His speech is much less intelligible and his breathing is much worse.”

She said her son “is scared he is going to die” in prison, while his GP is concerned that the lack of care in prison will “result in Daniel’s demise”.

Hall said: “He cannot survive in a place like that. They have no idea of basic disability awareness. He needs 24-hour care. He has no quality of life and it is deteriorating. He is in danger of dying.”

In a statement, the charity Ataxia UK said Roque Hall had been given a prison sentence and “not a death sentence”, and added: “Daniel’s balance, co-ordination and mobility is already significantly compromised by his FA, and it is vital to his future welfare that he is provided with necessary care.”

The charity said the symptoms of his condition “require round-the-clock support to sustain safety and quality of life”, while it is “essential that specialist services, appropriate to the individual’s care needs, are both fully available and in place”.

It added: “Without these services in place, health and wellbeing – both physical and emotional – will be considerably compromised as time passes.”

A Prison Service spokeswoman said: “We don’t comment on individuals.”

She added: “We have a duty of care to those sentenced to custody by the courts. As part of that duty of care, we ensure that prisoners have access to the same level of NHS services as those in the community.”

When asked by Disability News Service (DNS) whether the Prison Service would discuss the case if Roque Hall gave his permission for it to do so, the spokeswoman repeatedly refused to comment.

Central London Community Healthcare NHS Trust said it was “disappointed with claims of sub-standard care as we believe that we provide good quality care to anyone detained at HMP Wormwood Scrubs”.

UPDATE: In the early hours of this morning (Friday), Anne Hall was called to University College Hospital, where she was told her son was seriously ill. He had been taken there with heart problems (tachycardia, a heart rate disorder) two days earlier. He is currently in the critical care unit. She said she found him “emaciated, barely able to speak and barely able to recognise me”. Hall told DNS that she had been telling the prison “for weeks” that her son “must be having tachycardia and he needs to be taken to hospital to be managed and they refused”.

source: John Pring: Disability News Service: 24 August 2012

It had faced criticism last week when it emerged that it was intending to bring out just six stamps to mark the achievements of all the ParalympicsGB gold-medallists, even though it had produced individual stamps to celebrate every one of Team GB’s 29 Olympic gold medals.

It blamed “logistical” problems, claiming far more gold medals were expected from Britain’s Paralympians than its Olympians, and over a shorter time period.

But this week Royal Mail announced that it was “pulling out all the stops” to produce individual stamps for every British Paralympic gold medal.

Because it expects as many as 60 gold medals over the 11 days of the games, Royal Mail pledged to have the stamps on sale at 518 post offices across the UK within five working days of each victory, before rolling them out eventually to another 5,000 branches.

Rower Naomi Riches, who last week said individual stamps would be another step towards giving Paralympic athletes “as much credit for their achievements as Olympic athletes”, praised Royal Mail’s about-turn, which she said would make a win “even more special” and help raise the profile of Paralympic sport.

She had previously suggested to Royal Mail that athletes would be happy to “wait a little longer” for individual stamps.

But Riches said it was now important to focus on “what we need to do in the next two weeks to put ourselves in the best position to win that gold so that we can sit on the start line and know that we have done all we can and can put in our best performance”.

Royal Mail had already announced that it would paint an extra post-box gold in the home town of every British Paralympic gold medallist – just as it has done with the Olympics – and set up a £200,000 prize fund to be split between all gold medal-winners, which is believed to be a similar amount to its Olympic fund.

Julie Newman, acting chair of the UK Disabled People’s Council, who was critical of the original decision not to produce individual stamps for Paralympians, praised the “very impressive” part that Riches had played in persuading Royal Mail to change its mind.

She said it was important that Paralympic athletes themselves had played a part in over-turning the decision, because “they are the role models, the ones who carry the legacy and who in 20 years’ time are going to be talking about the fact that their faces were on the stamps, inspiring the next generation”.

She said the amount of public support for the idea of individual stamps had been “overwhelming”.

Mish Tullar, Royal Mail’s director of media relations, said: “Following the success of our Olympics gold medal stamps and with clear public demand for individual Paralympic gold medal stamps, and from our Paralympians themselves, we’re pulling out all the stops to deliver these too.”

Andrew Hammond, managing director of Royal Mail Stamps, said the Paralympics gold medal stamps programme would be “the greatest logistical challenge in stamps production ever undertaken by any postal administration”.

The British Paralympic Association, which had welcomed Royal Mail’s original plans for just six stamps, said it was “delighted that the offer has been increased”.

source: John Pring: Disability News Service: 16 August 2012

The call for an audit was made by Disability News Service (DNS) after last week’s publication of a serious case review (SCR) into the “appalling and systematically brutal” abuse that took place at Winterbourne View, a private hospital for people with learning difficulties.

The SCR criticised the practice of sending people with learning difficulties to institutions far from their home areas.

John Pring, editor of DNS, first suggested a national audit in 2003, and repeated the call last year in his book Longcare Survivors: The Biography of a Care Scandal, which details his 17-year investigation into the institutional abuse of adults with learning difficulties at the Longcare homes in Buckinghamshire.

In the book, he raises concerns that thousands of people with learning difficulties appear to have been sent to live in institutions hundreds of miles from their original homes.

Many of these people were former patients of the old long-stay hospitals that began to be closed in the 1980s, and were simply abandoned in their new homes, which were often so far away from where they had been brought up that they received no visits, either from social workers or family members.

Many campaigners and social care professionals share these concerns, and believe such placements have put people at much higher risk of abuse, as was the case with Winterbourne View.

The call for a national audit was backed by Dame Philippa Russell, a member of the independent inquiry into the Longcare scandal, chair of the Standing Commission on Carers, and a former commissioner with the Disability Rights Commission, who has a son with learning difficulties.

She says in the book that there is a “desperate” need for national evidence of “what is actually happening” with out-of-area placements.

Neither the Care Quality Commission (CQC) nor the Department of Health (DH) was prepared to comment on the need for a national audit when DNS approached them last year.

CQC admitted at the time that it had no idea how many people had been abandoned in placements far from home, a question, it said, that was “not easy to answer with available data”.

But this week, following the Winterbourne View SCR, CQC said that, although the issue of out-of-area placements was “a matter for the Department of Health and commissioning bodies… we do believe an audit of the provision of out-of-area care would be a good idea”.

A CQC spokesman said its inspections of 150 services for people with learning difficulties, carried out after the Winterbourne View allegations were first aired last year, showed “too many people were in services away from their families and homes”.

He added: “We believe much remains to be done to ensure people with learning disabilities are provided with care in community settings close to their homes.”

A DH spokesman told DNS this week that the issue of out-of-area placements was under consideration but that he couldn’t pre-empt the department’s final report on Winterbourne View, expected later this year.

source: John Pring: Disability News Service: 16 August 2012

An initial analysis of participants whose stories were included on the London 2012 website – carried out by Disability News Service – had suggested that only about two-fifths of those chosen to take part would be disabled people.

That figure appears to have risen slightly as the final selections of participants were made, although LOCOG, the London 2012 organising committee, does not yet have final figures.

A LOCOG spokesman said that “at least half” of the participants would be disabled people, but that the relay was “never about setting a target” but “celebrating the human endeavour of Paralympians”.

He added: “We are still celebrating the fantastic people who are involved in the Paralympics, but it is not necessarily that the person carrying [the torch] is a disabled person.

“We think we have got a really good mix of stories that will make a celebration of the Paralympics and Paralympic values and we are very happy with the mix that we have got.”

He was speaking as LOCOG revealed full details of the torch relay’s 87-mile route.

Many of those taking part have been nominated for fund-raising or other charity exploits, while there will also be scores of representatives of the three “presenting partners” – London 2012 sponsors – who appear to have been picked only because they work for those companies.

Those nominated for the torch relay are supposed to embody the Paralympic values of “courage, determination, equality and inspiration”.

Channel 4 has already been criticised for its “absurd” decision to choose five non-disabled people – and not a single disabled person – to take part in the relay.

The three “presenting partners” – Sainsbury’s, Lloyds TSB and BT – have each chosen about 140 people to take part in the relay, with the other 150 or so being selected by bodies linked to the Paralympics itself and other London 2012 sponsors.

LOCOG this week published full details of how the Paralympic flame will be created and how it will make its way to the Olympic Stadium for the opening ceremony on 29 August.

Four separate flames will be created by disabled and non-disabled scouts at the summits of the highest peaks of Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

These four flames will be taken in lanterns to the four capital cities for separate one-day festivals, and then to Stoke Mandeville Stadium, the national centre for disability sport and the spiritual home of the Paralympic movement, where they will be “united” at a ceremony.

A 24-hour relay will begin at the stadium at 8pm on 28 August, which will see the flame carried 92 miles through Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and the capital’s six London 2012 “host” boroughs, before arriving at the Olympic Stadium for the opening ceremony.

During the 24 hours, the flame will visit landmarks such as the National Spinal Injuries Centre in Stoke Mandeville, Lord’s cricket ground, London Zoo and Tower Bridge.

source: John Pring: Disability News Service: 16 August 2012

Royal Mail sparked controversy this week when it emerged that it was not repeating its pledge to produce a new stamp every time a British athlete won an Olympic gold medal.

Instead, Royal Mail agreed with the British Paralympic Association to feature all gold medal-winning British Paralympians across six “group” stamps at the end of the games.

It blamed “logistical” problems, claiming far more gold medals were expected from Britain’s Paralympians than its Olympians, over a shorter time period, with as many as 50 or so gold medals over 11 days.

It insisted that it will paint an extra post-box gold in the home town of every British Paralympic gold medallist – just as it has done with the Olympics – and would set up a £200,000 prize fund to be split between all gold medal-winners, which is believed to be a similar amount to its Olympic fund.

Two of Britain’s ParalympicsGB team have already called on Royal Mail to think again.

Rower Naomi Riches said she believed Royal Mail “should make every effort” to produce individual stamps.

She told Disability News Service: “I understand that it might be a logistical nightmare due to the length of the Paralympic Games and number of potential gold medals, however it surely would be worth it.”

She said individual stamps would benefit Royal Mail, raise the profile of Paralympic sport, and provide another step towards giving Paralympic athletes “as much credit for their achievements as Olympic athletes”.

She suggested that Royal Mail could issue some individual stamps after the games, if it was too difficult to produce them all within the 11 days.

She said: “I am sure athletes would rather wait a little longer for such a great and unique thing. I know I would.”

Powerlifter Ali Jawad, another strong medal hope, also spoke out, this time on Twitter, and said: “I think if a British Paralympic athlete wins gold they DESERVE an individual stamp.”

He later added: “Our British Gold Paralympic medallists deserve it too! It’s our home games too.”

Tim Cowen, Royal Mail’s director of consumer and business media relations, said: “The logistics are that we just cannot produce that many stamps.”

He said Royal Mail would normally produce one new stamp a month, which would be planned up to two years in advance, and added: “To suddenly be faced with potentially having to produce 50 stamps in [11 days], that is a step too far. We looked at it and we just cannot.”

Because Getty Images – the International Olympic Committee’s official photographic agency, which is producing pictures for the Olympic stamps – could not guarantee to take pictures at every gold medal-winning Paralympic moment, Royal Mail will organise its own photo shoots of every British gold medallist.

On being told of Riches’ suggestion that Royal Mail could issue the stamps over a longer period, Cowen said: “It is very interesting to hear her views and it is very useful to know what the athletes think,” but declined to comment further.

The British Paralympic Association said it agreed with Royal Mail that it was “logistically and practically impossible” to produce so many individual stamps, and that it was “very pleased with the final plans”, including the six group stamps, gold post-boxes and £200,000 prize fund.

But it declined to comment further, despite Riches’ suggestion.

Julie Newman, acting chair of the UK Disabled People’s Council, said individual stamps would provide recognition of the achievements of Britain’s Paralympians, both for the British public and internationally.

She said equality between the Paralympics and Olympics was important, but individual stamps could also help with the media portrayal of disabled people.

She said: “It would portray disabled people as achievers, sportspeople, elite athletes, people who have achieved a level of excellence within their chosen field or sector.

“It would have been a tremendous opportunity to balance out a lot of the negative media portrayal of disabled people, and it is an opportunity that has been lost.”

source: John Pring: Disability News Service: 9 August 2012

It came as London 2012 reported record sales of Paralympic tickets, three weeks before the games open.

Last November, the London 2012 organising committee LOCOG stopped disabled people from booking tickets for wheelchair-accessible spaces for both the Olympic and Paralympic Games through its website.

Instead, wheelchair-users have had to ring an 0844 telephone number – with waits now of up to 45 minutes to get through – even though this option will not be accessible to many disabled people.

It has also been impossible to find out what wheelchair tickets are still available, for which events, and at what price – for both the Olympics and Paralympics – without ringing the 0844 number.

One wheelchair-user, who asked not to be named, said: “Everyone else logs onto the website, surveys what tickets are available, and makes their purchase.”

She added: “I am shocked and incredibly disappointed that this [phone only] system is considered acceptable for the thousands of wheelchair-users who would like to purchase tickets.”

A LOCOG spokeswoman said: “Tickets for wheelchair-users have been on sale in this way since November 2011.”

She said this was introduced because of a “separate quota” for wheelchair tickets, but has so far failed to explain what this quota is or why it means that wheelchair-users have to use a telephone booking line.

She said the London 2012 phone line had been “busy” because of the high demand for tickets, but that LOCOG had worked to “prioritise wheelchair-users” and had “emailed known wheelchair-users on our database to advise on availability”.

She added: “We are very proud of the work we have done to maximise the availability of wheelchair spaces for the games which we believe sets new standards for Olympic Games, Paralympic Games and other major events.”

But LOCOG has so far been unable to explain how wheelchair-users should buy their tickets if they cannot use the telephone.

LOCOG has now sold 2.1 million tickets for the Paralympics, including 600,000 in the last month.

This beats the previous record of 1.8 million tickets sold for the Beijing games, with three weeks still to go before the opening ceremony.

By 8 August, only 400,000 tickets remained unsold, although more will be released online in the next week.

Sir Philip Craven, president of the International Paralympic Committee, said this showed the “insatiable appetite the public has for top class elite sport”.

He said the “quite spectacular Olympic Games” had “further whetted the appetite of the public ahead of the Paralympics”.

He added: “Our aim now is to sell every single ticket. It would be fitting that when the Paralympic movement returns to its spiritual birthplace in three weeks’ time it does so in front of packed, sold-out venues.”

Tim Hollingsworth, chief executive of the British Paralympic Association, added: “I know our athletes can’t wait to compete in front of the biggest crowds ever at a Paralympic Games and we want them to be full of British fans.”

Reports from wheelchair-users who have secured Olympic tickets have so far been overwhelmingly positive about the venues, volunteers and their overall experience.

Phil Friend, vice-chair of Disability Rights UK, a leading disability consultant and a wheelchair-user, said on his blog that access at both the Olympic Park and for the equestrian events in Greenwich had been “brilliant”.

He said that “views inside every stadium were superb, the wheelchair spaces were situated in amongst the rest of the spectators, parking worked, [and there were] accessible toilets everywhere”.

He added: “The last time the games came to London in 1948 many disabled people were in institutions and access was more by luck than judgement.

“This time disabled people were there in all shapes and sizes, playing their part in the greatest show this country has ever produced. We have come a very long way.”

Meanwhile, LOCOG has been unable to say how many wheelchair-users attended the Olympics opening ceremony, following reports of empty seats.

A LOCOG spokeswoman said that “on wheelchair seats left unsold we’re not providing this level of breakdown”, but that LOCOG “might” reveal those figures after the games had ended.

source: John Pring: Disability News Service: 9 August 2012

The Together! 2012 festival had been due to include a conference on how the UN disability convention can be used to promote access to art, culture and sport, as well as a feast of high quality disability arts, and was being led by the UK Disabled People’s Council (UKDPC).

But the festival – and much of its programme – was called off this week when the London Pleasure Gardens venue in east London was forced to close, only weeks after it opened.

Some of the Together! 2012 programme has been rescued.

UKDPC’s offices in Stratford, a short walk from the Olympic Park, will host an “open house” event throughout the Paralympics, which will include some performances, although details have yet to be finalised.

And a Together! exhibition of work by local disabled artists, at the People’s Gallery and Museum of Newham, will still go ahead, from 3 to 8 September.

Other events are being rescheduled to take place during Disability History Month later this year, including some exhibitions, the conference on the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, a disability film festival, and poetry and film workshops.

Julie Newman, UKDPC’s acting chair, said the organisation was “sad” to announce the cancellation, and added: “Together! has attracted a huge amount of support from across the disabled world, and has been embraced by disabled people who wanted to come together to celebrate disability sport and art as well as to raise awareness of disabled people’s lives in all our rich diversity.”

Together!’s organisers have already criticised the Arts Council and LOCOG, the London 2012 organising committee, for failing to provide financial backing for the festival, despite significant support from disabled people.

Both Arts Council England and LOCOG concentrated funding instead on the Unlimited series of 29 collaborations between disabled and mainstream artists, set to be showcased by the Southbank Centre in central London during the Paralympics.

Because of this lack of funding, Together! had already been forced to relocate from its original venue a short walk from West Ham station in east London, one of the “gateway” stations for the Olympic Park.

Organisers had hoped the festival would be a major boost for a disability arts sector in London that has been left decimated over the last few years, and provide a “springboard” for disability arts in east London.

source: John Pring: Disability News Service: 9 August 2012