Here at Merton CIL we welcome the confirmation from Merton Council that a Changing Places facility will be included in the new Morden Leisure Centre, due to open this Autumn.

Merton CIL are surprised and disappointed to discover that Merton Council have removed the planned 'Changing Places' accessible facility from the new-build Morden Leisure Centre.

We are pleased to have the opportunity to respond to the National Planning Policy Framework consultation[1]. We are an organisation run and controlled by Deaf and Disabled people, delivering services within The London Borough of Merton. We are a pan-Disability organisation championing the rights of people across the full spectrum of disabilities. We take the view that that society creates barriers that 'disable' people with impairments from participating fully and on an equal basis with others, for example, by creating and perpetuating physical, information and attitudinal barriers. These barriers must be removed in order to support the independence and inclusion of Deaf and Disabled people, and the National Planning Policy Framework has a role to play in that.

Merton CIL recently submitted evidence to the Long term funding of adult social care inquiry by the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee. The inquiry is being held ahead of a planned green paper on social care. We have made similar submissions to Government inquiries before, and here at Merton CIL we felt a bit frustrated to be responding to the same questions over and over again. So this time round, we told the inquiry that they were asking the wrong questions. We said that there needed to be a better understanding of Disabled people using social care, as well as older people. We said that the inquiry should look more broadly about how to support people to live independently, rather than focusing just on social care.