A SALISBURY man is angry that regulations mean he can no longer access the building society where he has been a customer since he was a schoolboy.

Steven Fletcher (40), who has multiple disabilities caused by thalidomide, was left without easy access when the ramp outside the Bradford & Bingley, in Butcher Row, had to be removed, at the insistence of Wiltshire county council's highway authority.

Mr Fletcher has problems with all four limbs and with one of his hips, and he has a heart defect, so coping with the steps outside the building is difficult for him.

He lives in Harnham with his wife Carol and their eight-month-old daughter Mary.

He said: "It now means that, when I am caring for Mary, I can't manage to get her buggy up the steps into the building.

"I've had an account at the Bradford & Bingley since I was 14 years old and don't want to change."

He feels that he and other disabled people are being discriminated against by petty regulations.

"If you look along Butcher Row, you see A-boards outside shops, as well as tables and chairs," he said, "and I don't think the ramp is more of an obstruction than they are."

But the highway authority has said in a letter to Mr Fletcher that there is "no current or proposed domestic or European legislation that would allow the county council to license such an obstruction".

Bob Crean, of the authority, said that the ramp had to be removed because, at knee height, it would be more likely than chairs or A-boards to cause difficulty for a blind person.