A BLACKPOOL woman who has been paralysed down one side since the age of five, is planning to take a group of disabled people for a special winter break in the sunshine.

Miriam Grear, of Charles Street, is organising a coach trip from Blackpool to Benidorm as part of her campaign to get a fair deal for disabled people wanting to travel abroad. The trip is planned for the end of November.

Until then Mrs Grear will be appealing for funds from Blackpool people and businesses so that she can take as many disabled people as possible on the trip to the sun.

Mrs Grear started her campaign for disabled people in July, after her own holiday plans were ruined because no coach was willing to give her a front seat which would accommodate her leg which is paralysed and held straight in a calliper

She said: "I wanted to go to Spain with a friend who is able-bodied, but no coach company would give me a front seat or extra room to accommodate my leg. I had to stay at home."

She decided to campaign for the Disability Discrimination Act to be beefed up so that able-bodied people would have to give up the front seat if it was needed by a disabled person.

She enlisted the support of Blackpool South MP Gordon Marsden and took a 5,000-name petition, signed by people from all over the country, to Downing Street ,

The Government has promised to look at the matter after its conference at Bournemouth.

But Mrs Grear hasn't been hanging round waiting to hear more, she has moved the campaign up a gear by planning this trip.

She said: "To do this will be an achievement. We were going to prove a point by showing what disabled people can do and at the same time give people who wouldn't have the chance an opportunity to get away.

"But we still need lots of generous people in Blackpool to get behind us and raise funds so this can really happen."

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