Tour road closure ignores needs of vulnerable

LEEDS City Council is asking residents to “plan ahead” for the eight-hour road closures for the Tour de France. This is more or less what is being suggested in Skipton, where the Tour will also pass.

No-one has considered the vulnerable members of society e.g. those elderly and/or disabled people who rely on regular visits, preparation of meals etc. from carers or – in one case I know of – where the district nursing service must give an injection within a two-hour window to a cancer patient. How are the carers to access these people?

As a carer myself, who visits a relative in Skipton each day, the only advice was that I could drive to the outskirts of the 
town, park up (as if that will be possible with thousands expected to visit) and then walk.

As a disabled pensioner myself, that is not possible. There is no back-up plan. Emergency services seem to have planned ahead, not so the day-to-day essential care.

Efficient organisers and politicians should have looked carefully at what the Tour would mean to residents before accepting it, rather than attempting to firefight after it has all been agreed or leaving it to residents to muddle along the best they can.

Clearly, those in charge have been swayed by the glamour and gloss of the event and have given little or no thought to vulnerable people. It is a disgrace.