Last Wednesday the Weymouth and Portland Borough Council's planning and traffic committee voted to abolish the current system that offers free parking for up to three hours for blue badge holders in council car parks.

The predominant argument amongst the councillors present was that there are many non-disabled drivers who are poor so why should only disabled people get this concession?

It seems to me that many borough councillors have little idea of the life many disabled people have to lead.

The statistics are stark. Almost a third of working-age disabled adults live in poverty. This is twice the rate for working-age non-disabled adults and higher than a decade ago.

It means that there are more working-age, disabled adults and their families living in poverty than either children or pensioners.

These figures, from a report published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, echo a similar earlier message from the same organisation, when it published research into the additional costs of disability - costs that councillors seem to frequently ignore.

Poverty among disabled people and their families is seriously underestimated by official statistics because they do not take into account additional costs incurred, for example for personal care assistants or for extra heating.

A few years ago years ago, the Prime Minister's strategy unit published its seminal report, Improving the Life Chances of Disabled People. It recognised that disabled people are more likely to live in poverty.

Councillors must also recognise that, for those disabled people who are not in work, the benefit system is critical to their quality of life, but disability benefits are inadequate. And the assessment process needs to be radically simplified to increase take-up.

Moreover, we have ridiculous anomalies: for example, all people over 60 are entitled to a winter fuel allowance, while severely disabled people under 60 (who really need it) are not.

Another cause of poverty is that the social care system is failing millions of disabled people. Cutbacks by social services now exclude free care support for the majority of disabled people.

Most families with a disabled family member who needs extra care have to provide it themselves, restricting the chances of at least one family member getting a job.

This applies to me. I have to employ my own care assistants which consumes more than half my income, and that's after including my statutory state benefits.

Another major consideration when comparing non-disabled people with disabled people is that what a non-disabled person might do in one hour around town could well take a disabled person three hours to do, resulting in the disabled person spending far more in parking charges, money they can ill afford to spend.

So councillors, please remember this. What I've stated is not my opinion but fact.

It seems that some of our councillors need a deeper insight into just how costly it is to live with a disability. The perk of being able to park free in council car parks (like most of the surrounding local authority car parks) helped alleviate just a little of the cost of disability. This, our council has just voted out.

John Lambert Chairman Weymouth & Portland Access Group