Isabel Oakeshott.

[ks.234]

Have a look at the thread, this is all explained very well.

Like all pc gone mad trolls Oakeshott exploits the fact that the rationale behind regulation isn’t always immediately visible. She tips her hand here, with framing that obviously exaggerates things and with quips about the Paralympics: she shows us that cruelty is the real driving force behind all these appeals to common sense. Her followers on the thread don’t even bother to self-censor, while her critics do a good job of reading between the lines, and explaining things, and so the cruelty becomes very obvious. This kind of tabloid sadism doesn’t really work on social media.

You may be right, but Oakeshott isn't dumb. She's a media savvy, calculating professional. She won't have posted those tweets if she hadn't calculated that they'll give her right wing cause an advantage somewhere, somehow. It's about creating a twitter storm sufficient to make the wider news, and feed into and harden, the general bigotry of people who don't use twitter.

 

[maxflinn]

if the spaces are underutilized and the carpark often full then they are not required.

They could be largely empty most days but on rare occasions mostly full.

Either way, such facilities need to cater for disabled people's needs, as decent societies do.

IMO, all she's doing is insinuating that the left are 'stupid, too soft, too politically correct etc', knowing a flock of right-wing followers will agree.

She's a heartless, shitstirring cu**!

 

[droodzilla]

Mark, as I say, you're missing the bigger picture - see ks.234's + max's posts above. I would bet good money Oakeshott doesn't really give a damn about the number of disabled spaces in that car park.

 

[mark121211]

Mark, as I say, you're missing the bigger picture - see ks.234's + max's posts above. I would bet good money Oakeshott doesn't really give a damn about the number of disabled spaces in that car park.

I'm not missing the bigger picture at all. As I said before i'm not deffending her, only commenting on the ratio of disabled to regular spaces and if the disabled spaces are underutilized & the rest of the car park is then there is no need for them.

 

[andrewhockley]

The implications of not finding a space if you're disabled are much worse than for able bodied. So I'd assume the designers would be allocating spaces so the disabled bays are never all full. Which is going to mean they'll be very empty a lot of the time.

 

[ks.234]

Mark, as I say, you're missing the bigger picture - see ks.234's + max's posts above. I would bet good money Oakeshott doesn't really give a damn about the number of disabled spaces in that car park.

Let's face it, she probably doesn't use the car park anyway. She'll get one of her underlings to drop her off at the entrance. Parking on the double yellow lines to get her handbags out of the back and sticking two fingers up at the traffic queued behind her as she does it.

 

[glancaster]

I know this car park. It is Oxford Parkway rail station car park, near Kidlington. This rail station is relatively new still, and usage is still ramping up. I use it from time to time. You should know:

1. The photo in the OP and original tweet doesn't show the many other lines of non-disabled parking. If you look at the Twitter thread you can see an aerial shot that gives a better idea, although it also includes part of the neighbouring park and ride car park (Water Eaton P&R) on the right. About 5% of the total spaces at the rail station are disabled. By space, it's more, as the disabled spaces are bigger, for obvious and sensible reasons.

2. Every time I've used the car park, there have been plenty of (non-disabled & disabled) spaces available. Isabel Oakeshott claims that when she visited all non-disabled spaces were occupied. I'm a little surprised, although it may be true. I rarely use it at peak times.

3. You could use the P&R car park right next door if the rail station car park is full, as Oakeshott claims to have done. There is now an electronic sign on the approach road that tells you how many spaces are free in the P&R. I pass it on most days, at the peak of the rush hour. Usually there are around 800-1000 free spaces. Maybe the train station car park is full when the P&R is not, although I doubt it.

4. Oakeshott claims that the P&R car park cost her twice as much as the rail station car park. According to these two web sites, the cost for up to 24 hours is actually the same:
https://www.apcoa.co.uk/parking/oxford/oxford-parkway-station/
https://www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/cms/content/water-eaton-park-and-ride-ox2-8ha
(If she's right, and these web sites are wrong, that would explain why the rail station car park is full and the P&R car park is not. If she's right about the pricing, the fullness of the rail station car park has NOTHING to do with disabled space provision, it's because it is full of park and riders from next door. She simply can't be right about both.)

5. Oakeshott also claims in her thread that one of the aerial photos (tweeted by Paul Gallantry) does not show Oxford Parkway rail station car park on the left. This is untrue, as Paul Gallantry explains. That is EXACTLY what it shows.

I agree this has a bad smell about it. I don't believe Oakeshott.

Kind regards

- Garry

 

[Seanm]

You may be right, but Oakeshott isn't dumb. She's a media savvy, calculating professional. She won't have posted those tweets if she hadn't calculated that they'll give her right wing cause an advantage somewhere, somehow. It's about creating a twitter storm sufficient to make the wider news, and feed into and harden, the general bigotry of people who don't use twitter.

Yes, might be wishful thinking on my part: Mark doesn’t seem like a monster but the agenda isn’t obvious to him. My sense though is that this kind of faux outrage doesn’t work as well once you can crowd source critique (good example of that from Garry above), and the tabloids themselves just don’t have the muscle to push it that they once did.

 

[the_bat]

Also, the tweet is timed at 5:23 a.m. It’s a reasonable assumption that the tweet was sent fairly soon after that, in which case it’s hardly surprising that there aren’t many cars in the disabled spaces. As the picture only shows one row of the rest of the car park there’s no evidence of how full it was.

 

[ks.234]

I know this car park. It is Oxford Parkway rail station car park, near Kidlington. This rail station is relatively new still, and usage is still ramping up. I use it from time to time. You should know:

1. The photo in the OP and original tweet doesn't show the many other lines of non-disabled parking. If you look at the Twitter thread you can see an aerial shot that gives a better idea, although it also includes part of the neighbouring park and ride car park (Water Eaton P&R) on the right. About 5% of the total spaces at the rail station are disabled. By space, it's more, as the disabled spaces are bigger, for obvious and sensible reasons.

2. Every time I've used the car park, there have been plenty of (non-disabled & disabled) spaces available. Isabel Oakeshott claims that when she visited all non-disabled spaces were occupied. I'm a little surprised, although it may be true. I rarely use it at peak times.

3. You could use the P&R car park right next door if the rail station car park is full, as Oakeshott claims to have done. There is now an electronic sign on the approach road that tells you how many spaces are free in the P&R. I pass it on most days, at the peak of the rush hour. Usually there are around 800-1000 free spaces. Maybe the train station car park is full when the P&R is not, although I doubt it.

4. Oakeshott claims that the P&R car park cost her twice as much as the rail station car park. According to these two web sites, the cost for up to 24 hours is actually the same:
https://www.apcoa.co.uk/parking/oxford/oxford-parkway-station/
https://www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/cms/content/water-eaton-park-and-ride-ox2-8ha
(If she's right, and these web sites are wrong, that would explain why the rail station car park is full and the P&R car park is not. If she's right about the pricing, the fullness of the rail station car park has NOTHING to do with disabled space provision, it's because it is full of park and riders from next door. She simply can't be right about both.)

5. Oakeshott also claims in her thread that one of the aerial photos (tweeted by Paul Gallantry) does not show Oxford Parkway rail station car park on the left. This is untrue, as Paul Gallantry explains. That is EXACTLY what it shows.

I agree this has a bad smell about it. I don't believe Oakeshott.

Kind regards

- Garry

Shame she's not on QT later!

 

[SteveS1]

You watch QT? You must be hardcore.

 

[mark121211]

Yes, might be wishful thinking on my part: Mark doesn’t seem like a monster but the agenda isn’t obvious to him.

Your reply is very condescending. We've never met and as such how do you presume that I have no grasp of the 'agenda'? In fact you are assuming a-lot of things. How do you know my name is Mark and i'm male?

I care not who Isabel Oakeshott is, her political leanings or her reasons for posting. I was commenting on what appears, on the face of it, to be unused disabled parking spaces.

 

[stevec67]

Also, the tweet is timed at 5:23 a.m. It’s a reasonable assumption that the tweet was sent fairly soon after that, in which case it’s hardly surprising that there aren’t many cars in the disabled spaces. As the picture only shows one row of the rest of the car park there’s no evidence of how full it was.

The pic has a time of 1.30pm or thereabouts, when you would expect a railway car park to be reasonably full. It wasn't taken at 05.23 in February, because the sky is light with visible clouds. She is still a vile poisonous toad though, stirring up bigots and then claiming innocence.

 

[richardg]

Let's face it, she probably doesn't use the car park anyway. She'll get one of her underlings to drop her off at the entrance. Parking on the double yellow lines to get her handbags out of the back and sticking two fingers up at the traffic queued behind her as she does it.

She'll be using it after I kneecap the cnut. She is vile, much worse since it is clear she is not an idiot.

 

[the_bat]

The pic has a time of 1.30pm or thereabouts, when you would expect a railway car park to be reasonably full. It wasn't taken at 05.23 in February, because the sky is light with visible clouds. She is still a vile poisonous toad though, stirring up bigots and then claiming innocence.

You're right, although it says 5:23 a.m when I bring up the tweet it would have been dark at this time so apologies for my error which I hope will in no way detract from the fact that she is, as you so eloquently put it, still a vile poisonous toad.

 

[droodzilla]

Your reply is very condescending. We've never met and as such how do you presume that I have no grasp of the 'agenda'? In fact you are assuming a-lot of things. How do you know my name is Mark and i'm male?

I care not who Isabel Oakeshott is, her political leanings or her reasons for posting. I was commenting on what appears, on the face of it, to be unused disabled parking spaces.

Mark (I'm calling you Mark in the absence of a real name) context is everything here. This is *not* a debate about whether some planning drone made a mistake calculating the number of disabled spaces needed. It's a calculated attempt to belittle efforts to stick up for disabled and vulnerable people by labelling any attempt to do the right thing "political correctness gone mad". It's what Oakeshott does and, sadly, our society rewards such professional right-wing trolls.

Why do you think Oakeshott considers the issue so important that the tweet is now pinned at the top of her page? It's just a few parking spaces when all's said and done. Nothing to get hot under the collar about, unless she has another agenda entirely.

 

[Seanm]

Your reply is very condescending. We've never met and as such how do you presume that I have no grasp of the 'agenda'? In fact you are assuming a-lot of things. How do you know my name is Mark and i'm male?

I care not who Isabel Oakeshott is, her political leanings or her reasons for posting. I was commenting on what appears, on the face of it, to be unused disabled parking spaces.

Sorry, just meant that I might have been wrong about Oakeshott having made her cruelty and prejudice too clear, since you at least had not read it that way.

 

[richardg]

It s also a 'pinned' tweet. I think that means the account owner wants the tweet to stay at the top of the list of tweets?

 

[kendo]

Perhaps there are so many disabled bays as many of them will be filled by vehicles parked by lazy, selfish, ignorant able bodied drivers just like every other car park.
Blitzmädel Oakeshott could maybe address this as it is a very real problem. Unlikely 'though...

 

[Paul R]

A perfectly valid point considering no disabled person ever drives or uses the train.

It seems that not so many use that station.

Common sense would suggest that disabled parking be provided such that there is sufficient space almost all the time, that the disabled bays fill after the rest of the car park is full. And that the ratio between reserved bays and others will not be the same for a commuter oriented railway station as for a supermarket, or a cinema, or a zoo, or a town centre or a hospital. And none of those ratios will be the same as that in the general population between blue-badge holders and others.

But carry on making your own reality.

Oakeshott does seem to be bang to rights on the charges next door at the PnR, which casts a smell over her. Doesn't discredit the lack of common sense in many disabled parking arrangements though, nor the PC gone madness that makes it non-discussable. In my sampling, which is infrequent, my local town often has no parking and always has less than half the recently extended and expanded disabled bays occupied. The local school has it about right, and I presume since they are not a public car park that that is because they are aware of the demand and would change provision accordingly.

If you are trying to get to Oxford and are disabled or caring for a disabled person note that the nearby but closer to the town Pear Tree PnR has no disabled parking at all. According to the web site, but I clearly recall marked bays last time we were there. A mystery. As you have to pay and display it seems thoroughly unreasonable to expect a disabled person to park, make their way to the machine, back to the car, then to the bus.