The owners of the Butterfly Walk shopping centre have said they will stop charging disabled visitors to use its car park.
The News had heard from disability campaigners, the Southwark Pensioners’ Action Group (SPAG), that blue badges had stopped being recognised at the car park.
SPAG’s chairman, East Dulwich man Tom White, said: “This is disgraceful. We at SPAG protested several years ago, that for planning permission to have a private car park opposite Morrisons supermarket in Camberwell, they must have blue card disabled bays.
“This was agreed and has worked quite well. We have now been told there is a new landlord, and there will now not be any free disabled bays.”
But the News has now been assured by the car park’s owners, Soho-based property firm Mumbo Jumbo World Limited (MJW), that a third-party contractor it hires to manage the car park will soon remedy the problem.
Nicholas Vaus of MJW said: “The ANPR [Automatic Number Plate Reader] system was installed…
“We are advised by the contractor that a consequence of this was that the [ANPR] cameras cannot detect who is using the disabled spaces which remain in place, we further understand this is the situation in the majority of private car parks.
“The contractor has however agreed to arrange for the system to be reprogrammed so that any car with a disabled badge registered against it will not need to pay a ticket.”
He added that this could take effect “later this week”.