disability discrimination

[a member]

:cry: during the season of 2004/2005 i was a disabled member and was disapointed to see that i MUST attend at least 4 work parties to be able to fish layer.....hasen to add that this has made me not want to join this year
further more some of ur disabled swims ARE NOT very wheelchair friendly.you could learn a lot from just trying to fish from a wheelchair yourself(not easy).plz consider ALL your members as 1 day u might b disabled and still want to fish.... if this sounds harsh,but put urself in my shoes :cry:

[Cockney Wideboy]

I cannot speak for anybody in authority within the club (committee etc) but I will say that I myself am that you feel this way. While it is certainly true that disabled facilities are certainly lacking - not just at CAPS waters but in all club and day ticket waters in general, I will say that the facilities and swims that ARE given to disabled anglers appear (to me - a healthy, able-bodied individual admittedly) to be sufficient. I speak mainly about the disabled swims at both Olivers and Bovington 1. Certainly the swim at Bovington 1 is extremely flat and and accessible for wheelchairs. There are possibly additional options that could be considered at other waters for disabled anglers as well (car park swim at Bov 2?).

As for your comments regarding the 4 workparties needed to be able to fish Layer, I'm not so sure what could be done about this. This scheme was bought in just a couple of years ago as an incentive to increase the work party attendance. The Layer upgrade otherwise works - like so many other places - on a waiting list system. You could obviously put your name down on the list. This is not meant to sound discriminatory in any way but the hard facts are that the club relies solely in part on the attandance of members to maintain its waters. There are times when certain incentives are necessary to ensure those attendances.

It would be sad if you took the decision not to renew your membership simply because you couldn't fish Layer. Before you do decide, you might wish to liaise personally with a committee member to see if anything could be done to help. I'm not so sure that Layer is exactly 'wheelchair friendly' anyway. Again, this is not what I nor you should consider discriminatory, but simply the geography of how Layer is situated. It mostly has narrow undulating pathways around it and a fairly steep gradient to negotiate (certainly in a wheelchair) before you actually reach the water. In the meantime, both Olivers and Bovington 1 have a lot to offer in the way of pretty much any species of freshwater fish you chose to target. Unless it's carp of over 35lb of course.

[The Laird]

Unfortunately when the water company de-silted Layer pit a few years ago they blocked the ramp down to the water preventing access for wheelchairs, As such it is no longer possible for severely disabled anglers to fish at Layer, there is no point in doing the work parties. As we only lease the fishing rights to most of our waters it may not be practical or possible to build ramps etc. However as Cockney pointed oit Olivers and Bovington both have access and parking right next to the disabled swims.