On April 6, 1995, the Government of the Canary Islands enacted Law 8/1995 on Accessibility and the Elimination of Physical and Communication Barriers for people with limited movement and/or communication possibilities.
Its purpose was: a) to facilitate the use of society's goods and services for people with limitations; b) to promote technical aids to avoid and eliminate physical and sensory barriers; and c) to arbitrate the means of controlling effective compliance with its provisions.
Its powers covered all future public and private actions in the areas of urban planning and building, as well as transport and communication.
The Canary Islands public administrations would be responsible for achieving these aims within their area of competence.
A Council for the promotion of accessibility and the elimination of barriers would be created, chaired by the Department of Social Affairs, and a Regulation was made two years later. The execution of these measures is the responsibility of the Departments and of the Island Councils and Town Councils.
The new headquarters of the Island Council was completed, if my memory serves me correctly, in 2007, twelve years after the Law was enacted and ten years after the Regulation. From the pedestrian crossing you cannot move to the sidewalk in a wheelchair due to the height of the curb and then there is a steep slope without railings or rest areas on the ramp to the building.
What can we say about the Arrecife Town Hall, which you cannot pass from the entrance? And the rest of the Lanzarote Town Halls, are their facilities adapted?
If we go in wheelchairs through the streets, the curbs force us to go on the road. Inaccessible commercial premises continue to open from the entrance and many of those that exist are not adapted.
What about pedestrian crossings? You find that the curbs of the sidewalks exceed 2 centimeters (if they are finished, if not, the legal maximum is 1 centimeter). If you can go up on a sidewalk, you probably won't be able to go down at the next corner and you have to turn around, because wheelchairs don't jump.
And public transport, has anyone seen a stop with a platform that allows you to get on them without the need for help as the Law says? Is transport adapted?
What are the solutions to apply? Is it to denounce the councilors of roads and works, the island councilors of mobility, transport and social services for prevarication every day? To the presidencies of the Cabildo and Town Halls? To those responsible for transport companies? Or perhaps it is more practical to annul the Law, since nobody complies with it and subsidiarily to the Parliament of the Canary Islands, because the laws they make are useless.
I think it is time for society to become aware that people with limitations have the same rights.
Luis Pérez del Toro