Are Folkestone’s Bus Stops Breaching the Equality Act 2010?

The closure of Folkestone’s 70-year-old bus station and the hurried switch to temporary roadside stops in Middelburg Square has sparked anger from elderly and disabled passengers. We examine what happened, what the Equality Act 2010 requires, and whether the council is on the wrong side of the law.

Folkestone & Hythe District Council (FHDC) has fenced off the Bouverie Square bus station to turn it into a park under its “A Brighter Future” scheme (backed by £20m Levelling Up funding). Buses now use a “linear” set-up on Middelburg Square. Many of the new stops sit on a hill; current provision is explicitly temporary while “bespoke new shelters” with side panels are manufactured. Passengers report no seating or weather protection at the temporary stops, and older and disabled residents say longer, steeper walks are now unavoidable. 

A public statement (shared with us) presses the council for an urgent update, noting that the lack of shelter and seating is causing “unacceptable difficulties,” especially for people who cannot stand for long.

Stagecoach says it has signage, route numbers, timetables and staff on hand, and confirms it has worked with both Kent County Council (the highways/transport authority) and FHDC on the changeover. 

The legal yardstick: Equality Act 2010

Two parts of the Equality Act matter here:

1. Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) – section 149.
   Public bodies must have “due regard” to the need to eliminate discrimination and advance equality of opportunity when making decisions. Courts have been clear this is a rigorous, continuing duty that must be exercised with a “conscious approach and state of mind.” Key cases include R (Brown) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (the “Brown principles”) and Bracking v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, where decisions were quashed for deficient equality consideration. 

   The Government’s guidance also stresses authorities must consider impacts and monitor actual effects, not just write a paper exercise. 

2. Duties to make reasonable adjustments – sections 20 & 29.
   Service providers (including public authorities providing transport infrastructure and information) must take reasonable steps to avoid substantial disadvantage to disabled people. The Supreme Court in Paulley v FirstGroup confirmed transport providers must implement effective adjustments in practice—policy on paper is not enough. 

Courts also expect public bodies to identify where more information is needed to understand impacts on protected groups and to gather it—a strand of the PSED developed through cases from Brown to recent Administrative Court decisions. 

Finally, case law shows outcomes go both ways: where a council does evidence timely, proportionate equality thinking, courts uphold changes to street layouts and traffic schemes (e.g., the Court of Appeal on Lambeth’s Low-Traffic Neighbourhoods).

Are the Council’s actions breaching residents’ rights?

The core questions

• Did FHDC/KCC apply the PSED properly when deciding the closure timing, route relocation, and the interim period without shelters or seating?

• Are reasonable adjustments in place—especially temporary ones—so disabled users are not left at a substantial disadvantage?

What the facts suggest (so far)

• Known adverse impacts. The interim design places most stops on a hill and (at present) lacks seating and weather cover—predictable barriers for people with mobility impairments, cardiovascular/respiratory conditions, visual impairment, chronic pain, and many older residents. Those are not marginal inconveniences; they’re precisely the sort of substantial disadvantage the Act targets. 

• Interim measures. FHDC says bespoke shelters are coming, but there is no evidence (publicly) of short-term mitigations—e.g., temporary modular shelters, benches, flatter alternative pickup points, handrails, or supervised “assist points.” Where transitional harm is foreseeable, courts expect timely, practical mitigation, not just future promises (the Brown/Bracking line). 

• Shared responsibility. Stagecoach references joint working with KCC and FHDC. On the ground, both the highway/transport authority (KCC) and the district decision-maker/land owner (FHDC) have functions that engage the PSED and services duties. If either (or both) failed to build in workable interim adjustments, liability risk increases. 

• Comparative authority. Paulley shows transport accessibility duties are real and enforceable in practice. While Paulley concerned wheelchair spaces on buses, the principle is that policies and arrangements must deliver effective access, not merely express good intentions. Temporary infrastructure still needs reasonable adjustments where disadvantage is foreseeable. 

Provisional conclusion

On the information available, there is a credible risk of non-compliance with both section 149 PSED and section 20/29 reasonable-adjustments duties during the interim period. If no equality impact assessment (or equivalent structured analysis) considered the short-term, rainy-day, queue-time realities and if no practical interim adjustments (temporary shelters/seating/alternative flatter boarding points/assisted transfer) were put in place, a court could find that due regard was not shown (per Brown/Bracking) and that disabled service users faced substantial, avoidable disadvantage (per Paulley). 

That said, if FHDC/KCC can evidence a robust PSED analysis with monitoring and swift mitigations—akin to the authorities whose decisions survived scrutiny—then a breach may not be established. The legal test is about process and proportionality, not perfection. 

What would compliance look like—now?

• Publish the equality analysis for the closure and interim period, including data on disabled/older bus users, route gradients, walking distances, queue times, and weather exposure; and monitor real-world impacts (s149). 

• Install temporary, modular shelters and seating immediately at each active stop (s20/s29).

• Designate at least one level boarding/collection point near the shopping core with continuous footway, dropped kerbs, tactile paving, seating, and staff support at peak times.

• Provide accessible, real-time information, including wayfinding and clearly signed step-free routes between stops.

• Document the mitigations and keep them under review, adjusting within days, not months, if issues persist (the “continuing” aspect of PSED). 

If residents seek redress

• Judicial review can challenge failures to comply with the PSED (e.g., Brown, Bracking), including the handling of transitions. Remedies can include quashing, declarations, and mandatory reconsideration. 

• Equality Act civil claims (services) can pursue reasonable-adjustments failures; Paulley confirms the courts will look for effective arrangements, not just aspirations. 

• Related case law on equality duties in planning/transport decisions underscores that robust, evidence-based equality thinking wins cases; paper-thin or after-the-fact exercises don’t.

Bottom line

Are residents’ Equality Act rights being breached right now?
If FHDC/KCC failed to properly assess and mitigate the predictable disadvantages of hill-side, shelter-less, seat-less temporary stops for older and disabled users, then yes—there is a strong arguable breach of both the PSED and the reasonable-adjustments duty until effective interim measures are in place. The council’s promise of future “bespoke shelters” is welcome, but compliance must be demonstrated in the interim, in the rain and on the hill—not just on the final drawings.

The Shepway Vox Team

The Velvet Voices of Voxatiousness