Episode 7

Wheelchair user Ayesha Khan, 21, was born with Spina Bifida and relies on taxis as a lifeline to transport her to college and to meet with friends.

But for people like Ayesha, booking a wheelchair accessible taxi can often be a real challenge.

A change to the Equality Act in April this year was meant to make taxi travel easier by making it illegal for taxi drivers to discriminate against wheelchair users. They cannot refuse to take a wheelchair passenger or charge them extra. Any driver found flouting this law, can be fined up to £1000 and even lose their licence.

However, this law can only be enforced if each local council maintains a list of wheelchair accessible cabs - known as the Section 167 list. But there’s nothing in the law that says the councils have to maintain a list, it just recommends they do.

We contacted all 22 local authorities in Wales and discovered:

8 Councils had published their Section 167 list by the October deadline

6 Councils intend to publish their list by the end of 2017

And 8 Councils don't plan to publish their lists until after the New Year.

As an experiment, Ayesha and X-Ray presenter Omar Hamdi, each phoned seven random taxi companies in Newport. Ayesha called for a wheelchair accessible cab and Omar called for a regular taxi. The results were surprising.

Each company Omar phoned said they could provide a car immediately. Ayesha’s experience was very different. Not only did most of the companies say they had no cabs available, one company even suggested she call a competitor. 

According to disability campaigner Doug Paulley, this isn’t unusual. He feels the new law only goes part-way to solving the problem:

 “it's fundamentally flawed and a half-hearted attempt. You might almost get the impression that they're not really bothered about enforcing disabled people's rights.”

Ayesha's home city of Newport is one of the areas that has a list of accessible taxis.

Which means if she suffers discrimination in future, there is at least a means of seeking justice.

Bueti Development - a new construction business in the Welsh Valleys – may have a stylish, Italian-sounding name, but some of its customers have been left wondering if their work will ever be ‘finito’.

Merthyr Tydfil pensioners Hilary and Ken Parsons both suffer from lung disease, and even climbing the stairs is a struggle. So they contracted Bueti to build a downstairs shower room for £9,000.

Despite paying company director Kristian Powell two thirds of the total sum, their extension was left for months without a roof or windows, and they had to pay thousands to bring in new builders to complete the job.

When Kristian Powell first came to quote for the job, however, it was a different story.

Hilary said: “He told me everything I wanted to hear. Promised it would be finished in four-five weeks max. I thought, ‘oh he knows what he’s talking about. We'll get it done and finished.’”

Hilary was left accessing her garden by a set of temporary breeze blocks instead of stairs, and the back of the house was left looking like a building site for three months.

She explained: “It's been horrendous, horrendous. We've both been on our inhalers more now than we should be because of the on-going dust.

“And the mess... I explained this all to him to no avail. He doesn't seem to take any notice. He won't answer any texts, phone calls, emails - nothing.”

Owain James from Caerphilly also use Bueti for work to merge his kitchen and dining room. He says Bueti failed to get the correct building regulations approval, meaning he had to undo work to get a structural beam inspected. He has since found out the beam was not adequately supported.

He described the experience as “absolutely devastating”.

In Ebbw Vale, and nearly a year past its completion date, Gareth Hopkins’s £18,000 extension has also been abandoned.

During the build itself, the roof was left unfinished, unsecure, and exposed to the elements for weeks on end. 

Gareth said: “I couldn't go out… without worry on my mind of ‘is my home safe? Is anyone trying to get in.’ It was a constant worry.”

Although Gareth had agreed to put in the windows and doors himself, he couldn't do this until Bueti's work was completed. To make matters worse, part-way through the project, there were also worrying issues with the roof. 

Gareth said: “It had been held… for around a month with just these two pieces of wood… it was bowing from the outside… The whole roof could have just collapsed into the bedroom.”

Bueti eventually made the roof sound, but Gareth will still have to bring in new builders to complete the extension.

He said: “I’m really frustrated and angry that, almost a year later, a job that was to take a matter of weeks is still ongoing and I'm left with a mess to pick up now. 

It seems others have been strung along by Bueti Development. The company has £4,000 worth of unpaid county court judgements against ot even though it has barely been going a year.

In response to his customers’ complaints, Mr Powell said all the customers featured had the right amount of work for the money they paid. He claims the specification of work on Hilary and Ken’s extension “constantly changed”, making it “impossible” to continue, and said they ended the contract not him.

He claims the building inspector did inspect Owain James’s extension and said the beams were strong enough for the load they were supporting.

In regards to Gareth Hopkins’s job, Mr Powell denies the roof was left unsafe, but he does admit making “an error in pricing the project” and says he tried to complete the job using his own money.