Appeal on behalf of disabled

Please could I make a point on behalf of all disabled people on wheelchairs and those carers who help them to get around. It is becoming an increasingly common practice in stores to reduce the width of the shopping aisle and walk spacesby cluttering them up with additional displays, impulse-buy baskets, and by placing clothing rails so close together there is barely room to walk past, let alone a wheelchair shopper.

Disabled people like to shop, too. They don't want to send someone else with a list to do it, particularly when it's for Christmas gifts and personal items. Just try moving through the large grocery stores with a chair, the shopping trolley attachment negotiating other shoppers with their own baskets, pushchairs etc, then complicate it with stacks of bottles, cans and baskets.

Even the checkout is not simple. There are actually very few wide aisles operating most of the time. It's getting worse. I have more than once asked staff why they are doing this and the answer is always the same: "We know, we are really sorry and we are actively looking at the situation".

Surely there is a health and safety issue here as well. Narrow aisles means a slower exit rate during any emergency, not to mention the possibility of injury from falling displays caught by footplates on chairs.

We don't all shop online. Shopping is also a social outing for many people who already find it difficult to join in other things that able-bodied people take for granted, and there is legislation for practices which are discriminatory to the disabled. I believe this is turning into one.

Vicky Parkin, Telford