Merlin, The Government and The Culture Of Dissolution Of The Rights Of The Disabled

If you have a neurodivergent child, or adult, who loves, seeks or needs proprioceptive (physical external) input, you may be familiar with the Merlin Parks like Alton Towers and Legoland.

You may also be aware that if your child has a disability, you may be eligible for a Ride Access Pass, which allows for your child to queue virtually instead of physically.

This Ride Access Pass does not allow you to just go to the front of the queue over and over again without any waiting, but instead, it allows you to do the waiting, often over an hour at a time, outside of the strict confines of a barriered queue surrounded by other people, where your neurodiverse child may become overwhelmed, dysregulated and distressed due to a lack of understanding of the concept of queueing.

This week Merlin changed the eligibility criteria and the process for applying for a Ride Access Pass, which has effectively rendered previously issued passes in some cases no longer valid and vastly cut the number of children and adults that are eligible.

This isn’t the first time that Merlin changed their Ride Access Pass system; last year they introduced pre-booking with a limit on those that were permitted to do so for each day. This resulted in many people no longer being able to use it, as they were either unable to secure a booking in time once the same were released, or they were not in a position to book in advance, as they did not know if their child, or adult, would even be in a position to visit the park in advance due to their disability.

These latest changes have created a furore in the community of children and adults with additional needs, and sadly I cannot say that I am overly surprised by the actions of Merlin nor the outrage in response.

However, this all seems to be a direct product of the current culture around the stealing of the rights of children and adults with disabilities that comes from the top, from our government, from the people that we elected to protect our rights.

The first set of rights that our government tried to take was to restrict who is entitled to disability benefits and PIP, and when they couldn’t do that, they tried to dispute the validity of diagnoses, including ADHD diagnoses. If they couldn’t take benefits from those with disabilities, they would declare fewer people to have disabilities and lock them out of support another way.

Now, they are coming after our children’s legal rights to an EHCP and special educational needs support.