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Carnival fan says accessible float ‘undignified’

Clara BullockSomerset
Chloe Hammond A woman in an orange and green top and trousers with sunflowers on. She is sitting in front of her wheelchair and has assistance dog Ocho sat on the ground next to her.Chloe Hammond
Chloe Hammond and her assistance dog Ocho wanted to be part of the carnival this year

A disabled woman who was made a specially-adapted cart so she could take part in a carnival said she is disappointed after finding it was unusable for her.

Chloe Hammond asked to join Misfits Carnival Club after seeing them use sign language last year, and she said they had done their best to accommodate her.

The 34-year-old full-time wheelchair user was due to appear on their float at Bridgwater Carnival on Saturday, but she said she felt the enclosed seat provided for her “would not be a dignified way to be part of the carnival”.

Carol Watt, co-founder of Misfits, said the club is "really, really disappointed and gutted" that they could not make the accessible cart work for Hammond.

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Hammond said she did not blame the club, based near Taunton, but that it had ran out of time and space to make the cart into "something that was going to be usable for me".

"The seat was enclosed so I knew I'd be stuck in it, it would not be a dignified way to be part of the carnival…," she said.

"They just didn't fully understand accessibility. Nobody fully understands it unless you lived it.”

A giant scarecrow on a cart with marshalls walking around it. There are people watching behind the church railings.
The Bridgwater carnival takes place this weekend

Watt said that it had been a "massive learning curve" for the club.

"We're really upset by the fact that we've not been able to do what we wanted for Chloe," she added.

"We feel that we've let her down because we haven't been able to fulfil what we've really wanted to do."

She said she is hoping to have a conversation with Hammond to find out if they can do anything differently next year to make it possible for her to be on the cart.

Hammond said: "I don't want the message to be that carnival can't be accessible, I'm sure there's a way to make carnival inclusive.

"Representation is so important, there will be so many disabled children in the audience looking at someone in a cart and going - look, they did that.

"Without that, those children will never feel included in carnival and that's really sad."

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