Disabled people in Brighton and Hove face a winter of isolation

Brighton’s Shopmobility service will close its doors for the winter.

For many people, that might sound like a small story, one local charity losing a funding battle. But for hundreds of disabled residents and visitor, it means losing a part of their independence to take part in city life.

Shopmobility isn’t just about hiring scooters or wheelchairs. It’s about being able to do ordinary things that most people take for granted, to go shopping, meet a friend for coffee, or simply be part of city life. Without it, those who need it may be left stuck at home.

The reason is brutally simple – money. It costs around £25,000 to keep the service running through the year, and after losing our council funding and years of rising costs and shrinking public funding, we simply can’t find the money.

Our volunteers give their time freely, and Churchill Square shopping centre generously provides the space rent-free and have offered space for crowd funding. Every penny we raise goes into keeping the scooters charged, serviced and insured. But goodwill has its limits, and the bills still must be paid.

Shopmobility once sat within a web of local services supported by councils as part of their duty to make cities accessible. But those days are gone. Years of budget cuts have stripped local authorities to the bone.

In Brighton and Hove, that’s meant community services like ours being left to shoulder the cost of inclusion – something that should never depend on charitable donations.

I don’t say this lightly. I understand the pressures councils face; I see it in the number of people coming to us for help who used to be supported elsewhere. But there comes a point when the long shadow of austerity stops being an accounting exercise and starts being an act of exclusion.

Because £25,000 might be a rounding error in a local budget, but for us, it’s the difference between disabled people having access to their city or being shut out of it.

What’s happening in Brighton isn’t unique. Across the country, disabled people are facing increasing isolation as social care, transport, and accessibility budgets are cut.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission warned that “disabled people are being disproportionately affected by reductions in local services.” Yet the narrative rarely makes the headlines.

When public funding disappears, charities are expected to pick up the pieces, often without the resources to do so. We become the stopgap when public funding disappears, expected to deliver essential infrastructure on goodwill alone. But you can’t build inclusion on bake sales.

There’s also a deep irony here. The “Purple Pound” – the spending power of disabled people and their families is worth over £270 billion a year to the UK economy.
When disabled people can’t reach shops, cafés and attractions, it’s not just unjust, it’s economically absurd. Brighton’s businesses lose customers. The city loses revenue.

If we want to talk about growth, let’s start by removing the literal barriers that stop people spending their money.

Brighton likes to think of itself as progressive, inclusive, and fair. But real inclusion is measured not by slogans, but by who’s left behind when the funding dries up.

This winter, hundreds of disabled people will lose access to their city centre because £25,000 couldn’t be found in a multi-million-pound budget. That’s not just a local tragedy, it’s a snapshot of what austerity looks like after more than a decade of cuts.

At Possability People, we’ll fight to reopen Shopmobility in the spring. But we can’t do it alone. If we want Brighton to remain a place where disabled people can live with dignity, then inclusion must stop being optional. It’s time to stop pretending that equality can be delivered on donations and goodwill alone.

Brighton takes pride in its diversity – it is a designated ‘city of sanctuary’. But disability often sits at the bottom of the inclusion hierarchy. Real equality means showing up for all protected groups, not just the ones who make the biggest headlines.

If we mean what we say about independence, dignity and fairness, we must fund it.

You can see the difference our work makes in our Impact Report, which shows how services like Shopmobility change lives across the city every single day.

If you or your organisation can help, whether through funding, partnership, or simply sharing our story, please get in touch.

Lucy Vallis

Chief Executive Officer