Clare Lally only wanted her seven-year-old daughter, Katie, to be able to get out of their home safely. Katie uses a wheelchair but the local council – somewhat misunderstanding the concept of a wheelchair – had housed the family at the top of three flights of stairs. For two years, Lally campaigned for decent access for her daughter. What did her local council do? Move her to a ground level flat? No. Build a 60-metre steel ramp over the entire front garden at a cost of £40,000, which winds round for 10 levels from pavement to front door? Bingo!

"You want a ramp, I'll give you a ramp," seems to be the message from West Dunbartonshire council.

The council apparently told Lally that the giant ramp was the only option because of building regulations. Lally said: "It is a lot easier but I don't believe that the council weren't able to do something else. We weren't fighting for a massive steel ramp.

"There must have been a better solution. The council could have gone about the whole project in a more sensible way," she went on, fundamentally misunderstanding the joy of spending tens of thousands of pounds of public money on a cross between a fairground ride and the most terrifying steel construction this side of a post-apocalyptic warzone.

Clare Lally's house, before the installation of the world-leading access ramp. Photograph: Google/SWNS.com

Who are we to doubt West Dunbartonshire council's good intentions? Perhaps it took two years to construct. Perhaps someone at the council really likes ramps. Perhaps budget cuts mean a ramp that could injure someone and make more people need it seemed better from a cost-efficiency point of view. I have another theory.

In a world where Iain "I accidently wasted £140m of public money on a benefits system no one can use" Duncan Smith is the man responsible for disabled people's rights and dignity, West Dunbartonshire council are here to save us. Under their leadership, Britain could evolve into the access capital of Europe, a country that is just one giant row of connecting steel ramps, running one local authority to another. Clare's ramp is just the beginning.

The ramp – or, as I like to think of it, the first stage of Britain's egalitarian future – is so big that Clare can't see the bottom of it from her front window. You can, however, see it from space. So who's really losing out? That's for people with common sense to decide.

"We have waited so long for access and now we have got it," Clare understandably lamented. "But we need to have a gate at the bottom."

For God's sake, be careful what you wish for Clare! West Dunbartonshire council is currently sketching designs for one that touches the moon.