It was claimed that there was little excitement for the London 2012 Paralympics with only 18 per cent of those asked stating that they planned to watch the Games.

The survey also indicated that the Paralympics should be scraped and combined with the Olympics to create a fully integrated event but Baroness Tanni, who won 11-Paralympic gold medals in a glittering career, feels that merging the two events would be a huge blow for disability sport.

"I can see what Scope are saying in their survey and I appreciate what they are trying to do because I think it is very important for organisations to look at the issue of disability and to get the views of disabled people directly," she told insideworldparasport.

"I also think if you ask the majority of people if the Olympics and Paralympics should be combined; they would actually say yes.

"But I think that view comes from not looking at the issue properly or looking at just what a great event the Paralympics is as a stand-alone competition.

"It really provides a fantastic platform to showcase to best of disabled sport and if it was combined with the Olympics, we wouldn't have an opportunity to showcase the vast majority of disability sports like we do now.

"The reality is also that it is almost impossible to combine the two because of how big they both are now.

"The Olympics has been huge for a long time and the Paralympics has also grown into a huge event in the last decade so no city could actually now host a Games the size of the two combined.

"I think time and effort is better invested into making sure that the Paralympics can be as parallel to the Olympics as possible."

The comments support those made by British Paralympic Association (BPA) chief executive Tim Hollingsworth who last week stated that "the power of the Paralympic Games lies not in the gathering together of more than 4,000 disabled people, it lies in those people being elite athletes taking part in thrilling sport."

Baroness Tanni though, refused to be critical of Scope saying that it was important to get the views of disabled people in Britain on such issues.

"If you take the Paralympics out of it, coverage of disabled people is actually very negative," she said.

"Disabled people are often viewed a lazy and as people who do want to do anything for themselves and that is obviously wrong.

"Their views on the Paralympics were certainly interesting and it is always good to get people talking about the Paralympics, whatever they think of it.

"But this is about looking at the best forward and combining the Olympics and the Paralympics is not the right way forward in my opinion.

"The Paralympic Movement has come a very long way in a very short space of time and it is continuing to move forward a pace which is fantastic.

"But I think it is important that we don't dismiss what Scope were trying to do here because I really admire that they want to look closely at the issue of disability sport from the eyes of disabled people who are not actually involved in sport."

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