Parking Permits - Blue Badge
The Blue (formerly Orange) Badge Scheme provides a national arrangement of on-street parking concessions enabling people with severe walking difficulties who travel either as drivers or passengers to park close to their destinations. The Scheme also applies to registered blind people and people with severe upper limb disabilities who regularly drive a vehicle but cannot turn a steering wheel by hand.
If you are a resident of County Durham you can also email Blue Badge.
For more information, please contact us or call in at one of our offices.
The Department for Transport (formerly DTLR, now DFT) developed the scheme and local authorities administer it on their behalf. There is a DFT leaflet available on the Department for Transport website or from your local social care office.
The leaflet is called the Blue Badge Scheme, and gives further details on the following:
- Eligibility criteria for a badge
- How to use the badge
- Where the scheme applies and where it does not
- Parking benefits and conditions
- Where not to park
- Your duties as a badge holder
- Misuse of a badge
If you are a resident of County Durham you can also email Blue Badge.
If your application is successful, you will be requested to provide two passport size photographs and there is a charge of £2:00. The badge issued lasts for three years.
Who Can Get a Blue Badge?
Blue badges can be provided for children of 2 years of age and over, and for adults of any age. To qualify, you should be a resident of County Durham and meet one of the following criteria:- You receive the higher rate of the mobility component of the Disability Living Allowance.
- You receive a War Pensioners' Mobility Supplement.
- You use a motor vehicle supplied for disabled people by a Government Health Department.
- You are registered blind.
- You have a severe disability in both upper limbs, regularly drive a motor vehicle but cannot turn the steering wheel of a motor vehicle by hand even if that wheel is fitted with a turning knob.
- You have a permanent and substantial disability which means you are unable to walk or have very considerable difficulty in walking. In this case you may be asked to answer a series of questions to help the local authority determine whether you are eligible for a badge. People with a psychological disorder will not normally qualify unless their impairment causes very considerable, and not intermittent, difficulty in walking.
For more information, please contact us or call in at one of our offices.
