Campaigners have attacked Royal Ascot organisers for trying to charge disabled race-goers double what the able-bodied must pay to park at York's Knavesmire during the event.

Spaces for disabled people will cost £10 during the five-day meet, while able-bodied visitors will only have to pay £5.

Sales manager Daniel Squires said the disabled spaces were in a car park "significantly" closer to the gates than the area where able-bodied people will park.

But campaigners say the move is "clear discrimination" and have asked whether the price hike is against the law.

Lynn Jeffries, a disability adviser at York Hospital, said: "I don't understand the logic behind it at all, it's not customer services based in any sense.

"Ten pounds is an awful lot of money to pay to park your car. I would say there is no way they can charge extra and I'm quite surprised they are.

"Maybe it's a cynical ploy to stop people going, but it's a very unusual way to have gone about doing it - it's clear discrimination."

She said it might put disabled people off visiting Royal Ascot.

"It's bad PR and it looks terrible, there's a whole mountain of (disabled) people who could be spending lots of money."

Andrew Crooks, campaigns officer for disability charity Scope, said he doubted whether the arrangements were legal.

He said: "You shouldn't charge disabled people more for the same services, and you shouldn't offer them less of a service."

But Mr Squires said the company was not breaking the law.

"It's something we're very aware of, and we would be breaking the law if we were providing parking for one specific group, but we're not doing that," he said. "We're using car park C for a variety of purposes and we're only allowing a certain amount of disabled cars in there."

Mr Squires said the car park earmarked for disabled visitors - car park C - would also host coaches and limousines.

Since the Evening Press intervened, Mr Squires said the sales team had been re-briefed to offer disabled visitors the option of parking further away in car park B for £5, where there would be disabled buggies.

Able-bodied people would now also be given the opportunity to park in the £10 spaces, if they asked to.

What happened when we called

WHEN a reader called the Evening Press to say disabled parking at Royal Ascot would cost double, we decided to see for ourselves.

We phoned Ascot to ask the price of daily parking, and were told it was £5. We then asked the price for a disabled relative, and were told £10, because the car park earmarked for disabled parking was closer to the track.

Since then, sales manager Daniel Squires has rebriefed the sales team to offer disabled people the option of cheaper parking in car park B, as well as the £10 spaces in car park C.

They will have access to disabled buggies if they chose to park in car park B.

Although there will probably not be marked disabled bays, the spaces will be wide enough for disabled people to get out of their cars and into wheelchairs.

Able-bodied people will now also have the option to park in the £10 car park C spaces, as long as they ask to when booking.

Updated: 10:13 Thursday, April 07, 2005