YORK should be accessible to all, no matter how easily or otherwise they can get around. That much should be obvious to everyone, yet the reality is more muddled.

This city is still not doing enough to make life as straightforward as possible for those with physical limitations. Six months after new legislation came into force, a number of prominent businesses and services have not yet made the changes now required under the new law.

People confined to wheelchairs may well feel the disabled get a poor deal in York. This is certainly the view of campaigner Lynn Jeffries, who has long used her own wheelchair to highlight the problems that can be faced in trying to get around York.

Sometimes there are great difficulties to surmount. York is an ancient and historical city so it is not always going to be easy to admit wheelchairs everywhere with ease. Yet that cannot be used as an excuse for inaction. Besides, many of the difficulties encountered by Lynn as she carried out this newspaper's accessibility survey were caused by nothing more than a small step.

The trouble is, what is hardly noticed by the able-bodied is enough to deny access to someone in a wheelchair. All it takes to get round such obstacles is a ramp - and if one cannot be built, a temporary structure will suffice, so long as there is a bell outside a shop with a note explaining how the disabled can summon assistance.

More has to be done to enforce a law which was brought in for very good reasons.

Updated: 09:38 Monday, April 25, 2005