Hundreds of blue badges belonging to people who have died have been cancelled in a council crackdown to stop them being used by relatives or sold on, reports The Sentinel.
The blue badges had not been returned to Stoke-on-Trent City Council, despite the badge holders being dead. So relatives were contacted by council officers - and now 494 badges have been returned or cancelled.
The figure does not include blue badges which had already been sent back by loved ones. It is not known how many of the 494 badges were being used illegally.
Councillor John Daniels, said: "We have strengthened our procedures to ensure relatives or the person registering a death is made aware of the need to return the blue badge. We have written to relatives of blue badge holders who have died to ask them to return the badge. Those that have not been returned have been cancelled."
News of the crackdown comes as Sentinel inquiries revealed more people are being refused blue badges by the city council. Figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show 241 of the 3,830 applications between January and the end of September last year were refused, compared with 233 refusals out of 5,381 applications in 2008.
In 2008, 79 of the refusals were overturned on appeal, with 35 overturned in the first nine months of last year.
At present, about 16,000 people have blue badges in Stoke-on-Trent.
Mr Daniels added: "In the middle of 2006 we stopped accepting applications supported by a family doctor. We introduced a new system of assessment by independent occupational health professionals."
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