Yep good spot that's definitely it. As well as a Starbucks on site there is also a members gym in the hotel open to non residents and another restaurant/pub. The car park looks very busy on streetview.

Well, as it's a private car park, the disabled bays are discretionary and non-enforceable in law. It's possible that the individual premises take a balanced view of the situation. If the BBC use this hotel every year for the Strictly cast, it's probably quite lucrative to them, so they may very well choose to exercise discretion over the use of disabled spaces for people who are regular patrons of the hotel.

In case anybody here doesn't know.that isn't a legit' use.
You're not supposed to exploit the privileges of a blue badge unless the holder is getting out of or into the vehicle.

Especially since as a hotel they will know if someone is around who actually needs to use the bays because of their disablity. I don't know if the gym is open to the general public but I'm sure if Nat did use the gym there would have been a way of contacting her if the bay had been needed to used by someone who needed to use and like others have said we only have the frankly dubious word for the paper that this is what she did. In any case it's very different to willfully using a disabled space to go to a gym which is how it was presented.

Unless UK hotels are different to Irish ones how would the hotel know who is likely to need that space ? Here hotel bars are used by the public a lot , for drinks , food , chat , meeting up etc .

I don't know about that particular one but amongst my group of friends that's what the pub is for. The only time I've been in hotel bars is when I'm staying there or when someone I know holds a function there.

I would hope they would try and keep a eye on numbers because in the event of a fire the fire brigade will need to know how many people need assistance from them.

When digital cameras started to be used, the police would say that they could not use a digital image because it could have been tampered with. The first dashboard cameras used an encryption system so the images could be passed to the authorities with a guarantee that they had not been altered. Now we seem to be in the situation where someone could make a sketch of an incident on the back of an envelope and there would be people calling for the alleged offender to be prosecuted solely on the basis of that "evidence".

I don't think they would know. Last time I took my mum to a hotel I told them she was disabled but they still weren't prepared. The door accessed by the ramp was not open. Same for dining room which had our reserved table in an inaccessible place despite my enquiring in advance.

I think there is some hypocrisy here. Hotels advertise they are fully accessible, and pass the inspections, but then fail to maintain that accessibility in the way they behave.

If anyone parks in a disabled place, and then goes off leaving their car unattended, in the somewhat 'certain' knowledge that it won't be used.....well I think they are just kidding themselves and excusing their inconsiderate behaviour.

Will Young too evidently: http://www.able2uk.com/able2uk-news/...-disabled-bays

Then they are both selfish twits!

Can't believe Will Young lit a fag at a petrol station.

We only have the paper's word that he did those things or that she left it there for three hours as someone said she could have just left it there to get some stuff and a quick coffee and if the hotel said it was ok. She doesn't look like she's got a ton of stuff which you might expect from a three hour shopping spree. I know that possibily it's not great but why not use it as endeavor to educate people rather than just blanketly condemn them.

Ah, but he's had depression you know, so it's OK.

I agree, The Village Hotels are all over the country, the car parks are only for use by patrons of the hotel and the disabled spaces are for disabled people not for any Tom, Dick or Harry who think it is OK to park in them. Natalie should be ashamed of herself, there are no excuses.

A lot of people do the same so why are they picking up on Natalie?

Because this thread is about Natalie, I would say the same whoever it was.

Hah! No not ever


She is part of the most watched BBC show currently airing, therefore 'news'. And she did something that appears to be pretty selfish and arrogant so I have little sympathy for her.

Well, she was a patron of the hotel and there may have been a reason why she was parked in the disabled bay. As I said before, she appeared to have had a couple of suitcases which she was unloading from her boot on one of these occasions. She may simply have been unloading them to take into the hotel before moving her vehicle elsewhere. The DM makes no mention of any of that - just a few vague references attributed to one of their usual unnamed "sources".

I think I'd prefer to know the context before tearing into her, as she may well have been given permission by the hotel to use the disabled bay whilst loading and unloading her luggage.

EDIT: This is particularly so if there was a stalking nutcase lurking in the shrubbery taking surreptitious photos of her.

If this is true how incredibly stupid must he be!

Yes, she was a patron of the hotel and entitled to a parking space not a disabled one. Even if she was unloading, she should not have been there and apparently she has done it twice.

One of the 'sources' said she left the car in a disabled bay for three hours while she went shopping after visiting Starbucks.

So she thought she was a patron because she had brought a coffee and that entitled her to a disabled parking space. Lol.

I think the car park is not just for the use of people staying at the hotel. It is also used by members of the Village gym which is run as a normal members gym ( i.e. you don't have to be staying at the hotel to use the gym) behind the hotel. The car park is also used by customers of the businesses on site such as Starbucks.
There is also a pub in the hotel called The Public House which in their advertising on their website they describe it as "Ours isn’t just a hotel bar, it’s a classic sports pub and a popular watering hole amongst Watford locals" https://www.village-hotels.co.uk/hot...ord/eat-drink/

Well, as I say, it's a private car park and use of the disabled bays is discretionary and non-enforceable. If she was given permission to do so, that's not really anyone else's business. She's not broken a law and unless it's known beyond doubt that she parked there without permission, I see no reason for everyone to get worked up about it. I would certainly hope that a disabled person was not prevented from parking there as a result of her car being parked in the disabled bay but I have little doubt that if this had been the case, the "photographer" would have recorded that fact too and made a HUGE issue out of it.

I prefer NOT to take everything that's reported in the DM to be an accurate representation of the facts and if she parked there for a few minutes whilst unloading her suitcases, it's not really that big a deal.

Frankly the fact that someone is so obsessed that they would follow her there or lie in wait for her so they could watch her and take photographs of her unloading her car to be be more than just slightly creepy and sinister.

The word "source" in inverted commas tells me all I need to know about that.

It's a euphemism for "we just made this next bit up".

I get that but there was truth in her parking in a disabled bay so I am not comfortable with doing my usual it's the DM so pft to it