A ROADS manager will spend time in a wheelchair to experience the problems of getting around Dorchester first hand.

Dorset County Council highways manager Richard Bastow agreed to negotiate his way around the town in a wheelchair at a meeting hosted by the town council.

More than 40 people attended the meeting at the Corn Exchange, raising a wide variety of problems facing the disabled in the town.

Mr Bastow said the evening was 'a reality check' to see if the council was doing the right thing with its policy of providing dropped kerbs.

He was challenged to spend time in a wheelchair by Carol Brennan, who said that although she had helped wheelchair users as a carer, she only began to understand the problems when she became disabled two years ago.

She said: "Until I was actually in a wheelchair or going around in a scooter I didn't appreciate how difficult it was. We want to be independent."

She added that some dropped kerbs in the town were still too high for users of scooters and wheelchairs, who could fall while attempting to drive over them.

Disabled campaigner Chris Irwin said more needed to be done to stop motorists parking cars on or in front of dropped kerbs and preventing people from using them.

He said: "People do not park across driveways unless they are being malicious, why should they park in front of dropped kerbs?"

Among the other issues raised were the problems of overgrown bushes, small footpaths, A-boards being left in the street and access to shops.

Carol Bancroft, who had urged people to attend the meeting, said a disabled person was 'better able to spot difficulties in the road than the able-bodied person'.

Terri Bartlett, who has been blind since her late teens, said the county council was currently pursuing a dangerous policy of placing tactile crossing points at angles to the road.

She said blind or partially sighted people were trained to use the angle of the knobbled paving stones as the direction in which to cross and that misplaced paving slabs could direct someone into the middle of the road.

Town councillor Molly Rennie, chairman of the community planning group, said she hoped those attending the meeting would join a new disabled access group to provide a permanent forum to raise issues.