Can Everyone Access Your Building?

Need help ensuring your property is accessible for disabled people? Our property surveyors in London and property surveyors in Kent are here to help.

We will conduct an audit on your property to ensure compliance with The Equality Act 2010. Our chartered surveyors are highly experienced and qualified, so you’re in good hands with Collier Stevens.

The Equality Act 2010

The Equality Act 2010 makes discrimination against disabled people unlawful. This includes failing to consider how disabled people may access your building and service, so it’s a statutory requirement and a key duty for businesses and public organisations to make it possible for disabled people to access public buildings and services. For more information on this, take a look at our Equality Act guidance.

Reasonable adjustments

The Equality Act 2010 states that changes or “reasonable adjustments” should be made to buildings to ensure disabled people can access the following things:

  • Education
  • Employment
  • Housing
  • Goods and services like shops, banks, cinemas, hospitals, council offices, leisure centres
  • Associations and private clubs like the Scouts and Guides, private golf clubs and working men clubs

It also states in Section 20 that “reasonable adjustments” also include:

  • (a) Removing the physical feature in question
  • (b) Altering it
  • (c) Providing a reasonable means of avoiding it

Scope of reasonable adjustments

It’s also true that for different sized organisations and differing services, the scope of reasonable adjustments may also vary. For instance, a small greengrocer communicating with a person with hearing difficulties by means of a written note may be reasonable, but for a major high street supermarket chain that would not be reasonable, and a more suitable approach may be an acoustic loop system to allow verbal communication.

Consider the last time you looked at your building and thought: “Has everyone got access to the service I offer?”. To get started on making the necessary but reasonable alterations, take a look at our guidance notes on Disabled Rights Commission.

Our disabled access case studies

Bungalow in Hythe, survey, disabled alterations

Disabled Access Survey – Pre-purchase Residential Survey

Pre-purchase survey of a bungalow with specific instructions to assess suitability for wheelchair use and necessary alterations.

Pre-purchase survey for wheelchair user

Our client was purchasing a bungalow and asked us to carry out a pre-purchase survey with specific requirements to consider the alterations that would be required to allow full use by a wheelchair user. The disabled access survey included measurement of corridors, practicality of internal alterations and cost assessment.

For further insight on the Disabled Access services we provide, and how we can help you, get in touch.

DDA Roundabout for Children

Disabled Access of Local Parks and Open Spaces in London

Retained by a London local authority to inspect and audit their parks, open spaces and pathways to ensure they were accessible to all

Disabled access audit – parks & open spaces

Collier Stevens was retained by a London local authority to inspect and audit their parks, open spaces and pathways to ensure they were accessible to all by undertaking a Disabled Access Audit. The scope of audit and inspection encompassed children’s play parks, café and common spaces, as well as the paths, entrances and direction signage.

For more information, get in contact with us today.

Disabled access

Disabled access isn’t just about getting into and out of a building. It’s about access to your services, and might include everything inside, including toilets, meeting rooms, canteens, corridors, doors, etc. Many people forget that access isn’t just for wheelchair users. It also includes visually and hearing impaired people and those with ambulant disabilities. In fact, the Statutory Code of Practice defines a person as having a disability if they “have a physical or mental impairment, which has a substantial and long-term effect on their ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities.”

The Code of Practice recommend the following:

  • Review regularly whether services are accessible to disabled people.
  • Carry out and act on the results of an access audit carried out by a suitably qualified person.

Collier Stevens undertakes disabled access audits of your property to establish exactly what you need to do. It may well be that no changes or small changes may be required, but you’ll have the peace of mind that as a business, you demonstrate the actions you have taken towards meeting the obligations placed on you by the Equality Act.

Get a disabled access audit in London and Kent with Collier Stevens

If you’re planning to make changes to your building and want to ensure compliance with the Equality Act 2010, our building surveyors in Kent and building surveyors in London can help. We’ll conduct a detailed and thorough disabled access audit, which will help us advise you on any adjustments that need to be made.

For more information on this service, get in touch with our team today.

Please note that our specialist skill is assessing buildings and how they can be altered. We are not able to give general legal advice as to the application of the Equality Act.