Disability Discrimination Act: don't wait until 2004

Facilities

ISSN: 0263-2772

Article publication date: 1 May 1999

163

Keywords

Citation

(1999), "Disability Discrimination Act: don't wait until 2004", Facilities, Vol. 17 No. 5/6. https://doi.org/10.1108/f.1999.06917eab.006

Publisher

:

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 1999, MCB UP Limited


Disability Discrimination Act: don't wait until 2004

Disability Discrimination Act: don't wait until 2004

Keywords Buildings, Disabled people, Legislation

The Disability Discrimination Act 1995 requires that all disabled people are able to use a building and have access to the services provided within the building. Su Peace, access consultant with Buro Happold Consulting Engineers, gives the following advice.

The Disability Discrimination Act 1995 is being phased in over the coming years. The part of the Act that has the most relevance to the building industry is to be enforced five years from now, in 2004, when part three requires removal of physical barriers to the building. In real terms this will mean that those buildings which are not now accessible to disabled people will have to be adapted to provide access. Architects would do well to bear the requirements of the Act in mind from now on when advising clients on access for disabled people, and designing new build and building refurbishment projects and facilities.

Until this legislation was enacted, the Building Regulation part M has been the standard which designers have had to achieve to make their buildings accessible to people with disabilities. The requirements of this document have implications for the structure, levels, circulation and space within the building. It deals with the building in a generic fashion and does not deal with all the access requirements of disabled people.

The Disability Discrimination Act is vested in the individual. Significantly, this means that any person who is unable to use a building, because it does not cater for their individual requirements, will be able to ask for that building to be altered.

In new buildings, those parts of the building that have been covered by Part M of the Building Regulation will not need to be altered. However, any parts of the building or facility not covered by the Building Regulation will have to be changed to allow disabled people to be able to use the building and facilities within the building.

In the case of listed buildings, there is an additional requirement not only to make the building accessible but to satisfy English Heritage and the conservation officers that the building will continue to give the same visual appreciation as when the architect first designed it. Even bearing these heritage and aesthetic considerations in mind, the Act requires that these buildings are made accessible to disabled people.

Any disabled person will be able to ask for an alteration to be made so that he or she can use the building. If it is considered reasonable to do so, then the service provider will have to make alterations to the building. Agreement will normally be sought without involvement of the courts. However, if no agreement can be achieved, then the disabled person can go to the County Court to seek action.

Reasonableness will be based on financial situation, the cost of the works and what the service provider has done so far to meet the needs of people with disability. Things which will be taken into account will include whether the provider has already got a strategy in place for making adaptations to the building and facility to enable access for the disabled.

Now is the time to encourage building owners, developers and facility providers to introduce clear guidelines and forward planning for the full implications of the Act.

Activities which should be put in place include introducing access auditing, with a clear disabled policy and strategy, to make use of refurbishment, and maintenance programmes.

Inclusive design

An inclusive design consultant is experienced in negotiating and designing into buildings all of the requirements needed to achieve compliance with the Disability Discrimination Act. Working with a consultant during the early stages of developing a project will save the client both time and money within the design process.

An inclusive design consultant involved in the early stages of the design will pick out potential problems well before the normal regulation stage identifies issues which will then have to be revisited, usually through an inevitable time-consuming and thus costly return to the drawing board.

The prevailing philosophy of inclusive design suggests that every part of the building be fully considered in relation to the many different requirements of disabled people. To achieve this successfully, as with any other requirement of the performance of the building, the implication will be that each part of the design process needs to be carefully considered in terms of full access for all.

Above all, good initial design will reduce the cost of the changes needed to provide accessible buildings for everyone.

For further information contact Helen Elias, Buro Happold, Camden Mill, Lower Bristol Road, Bath BA2 3DQ. Tel: 01225 320627; Mobile: 0403 129599; Fax: 01225 320601; e-mail: helen.elias@burohappold.com

(Su Peace, access consultant with Buro Happold Consulting Engineers, is a member of the Legislation Working Party of the Access Committee for England.)

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