Councillor accused of bid to discredit campaign for blind

A politician has been accused of trying to discredit a demonstration held to highlight blind people's road safety fears.

Kensington and Chelsea council's deputy leader Daniel Moylan sent an email suggesting one of the people on the rally was pretending to be blind.

Guide Dogs for the Blind, which organised the protest march, called the accusation a "disgraceful and ludicrous" attempt to discredit its campaign against plans to remove kerbs and create a "shared street" on a busy road. Tom Pey, Guide Dogs director of external affairs, said: "To think that Guide Dogs — a charity that has 75 years experience helping blind and partially sighted people to get about safely and independently — would use a fake' blind person is ludicrous.

"These remarks were obviously made to try and undermine us, our work, and the campaign."

The row broke out after Guide Dogs organised a demonstration for blind people and supporters outside the Kensington and Chelsea council offices on 15 May.

It was organised as part of the charity's national "Say NO to shared streets" campaign and was supported by the West London Residents Association to highlight concerns blind people have over plans to remove kerbs from Exhibition Road in south Kensington.

Mr Moylan sent an email to Gordon Taylor of the residents' association saying: "It has been reliably claimed that at least one of the blind' people at your demonstration this week (a man carrying a white stick and wearing sun-glasses) was a perfectly sighted local resident well known to the council."

Mr Taylor said: "I was absolutely shocked when I got the email. It was absolutely absurd."

The email was copied to Kensington and Chelsea councillor Nicholas Paget-Brown, and Kulveer Ranger, the Mayor of London's director of transport policy.

Mr Moylan, a Conservative councillor, denied making any allegations about the charity.

He said: "I was reporting something that was reliably told to me. I cannot be responsible for saying whose demonstration it was. I was aware it was a WLRA demonstration supported by the Taxpayers' Alliance.

"Guide Dogs have been misinformed. It was private correspondence."

A spokesman for Guide Dogs insisted the comments were an attack on the charity.