Are planners and developers doing enough to ensure that new-build properties are sufficiently accessible? Paul F Cockburn asks those in the know.
I listen as Conrad Hodgkinson explains how, “For the last 10 years of her life, my wife Christine – who had progressive multiple sclerosis – was completely quadriplegic and dependent on a wheelchair. Although we had, by pure chance, already bought a bungalow which we were able to adapt, we knew friends who were also wheelchair users, who found endless difficulties looking for somewhere to buy. I said to Christine, ‘What’s needed is a website that advertises accessible properties,’ As there wasn’t one already, we set one up!”
Some 12 years later, the Accessible Property Register (http://accessible-property.org.uk) gets between 600-1,000 page views a day. It’s still the only site of its kind, exclusively advertising accessible properties. “It’s known within the disabled community,” says Conrad. “Organisations of older and disabled people, which provide housing advice, will refer their members to the site. What’s much more difficult, of course, is to get the source of the properties – builders and owners – to advertise on the site when they’ve got something suitable.”
Current Building Regulations (Part M in England and Wales, Part T in Scotland) officially mean that all new properties should meet basic access standards. “Overall the supply of property with at least basic wheelchair accessibility is increasing,” Conrad adds, “but that doesn’t address the problem of providing information that can make wheelchair users aware that there’s something that might be OK for them.”
NEEDLES IN HAYSTACKS
Even identifying accessible housing can be like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack. “No Place Like Home”, a report published by Leonard Cheshire Disability in 2014, made pretty grim reading: among its findings were that only 5% of housing in England was wheelchair accessible, and that fewer than one in five councils had any kind of accessible housing register.
In short, Leonard Cheshire Disability concluded that “national governments and councils are failing to provide the disabled-friendly housing the UK needs”. Also, there is a real need for greater acceptance and implementation of the Lifetime Homes standard – a set of 16 design criteria ensuring accessible and adaptable homes, originally developed by the Habinteg Housing Association and Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
According to Paul Gamble, Habinteg’s Chief Executive, it certainly doesn’t help that the UK simply doesn’t build enough housing. Then there’s the oncoming demographic change, as the UK’s population grows proportionately older.
“All the issues about ageing have functionally very similar impacts in terms of providing housing for disabled people,” he says. “It’s about how you ensure you have level access, that you’re able to cook and clean and bathe. The demographic shift everyone kind of accepts is happening, so the question is now what we do about it?
INCLUSIVE DESIGN
In Austria, which is among Europe’s highest spenders on health and care, building homes which disabled and older people can live in for as long as possible is already considered best practice, and key to managing the costs of an ageing population. Since 2008, municipal government has required most new homes to be built to an equivalent of the Lifetime Homes standard, while also “retrofitting” existing homes to match. It’s an approach that Leonard Cheshire Disability believes should be replicated across the UK.
“Technically, the current Part M/Part T standards are good on inclusive design,” insists Paul. “The problem is that they’re optional. It’s suggested local authorities can determine that so much of their new build property should reach that standard, albeit subject to viability testing – our concern is that effectively very little of this property will be developed. What we really want is that they make the Lifetime Homes standard mandatory, a national minimum standard.”
For proof of what can be done, look no further than London; while housing remains a controversial subject in the UK’s capital, the Greater London Authority’s wider “planning and regeneration” remit has enabled it to insist that all new housing developments are built to the Lifetime Homes standard.
CAPITAL IDEAS
Nor is it just about building regulations: in 2014, London’s Mayor allocated £40 million to affordable housing projects across the capital. This March, in partnership with the Department of Health, came news of a further £35 million fund providing loans or equity finance to private housing developers.
“This is really trying to stimulate the private sector to think more about the provision of specialist housing for older people or disabled people,” insists
Richard Blakeway, the Deputy Mayor for Housing, Land and Property. “We’re really interested in seeing how our funding can either accelerate schemes or lead to new schemes.
“We’ve got an ambition in London to increase the number of homes being built but, for the first time, we’ve specified – by Borough – the number of homes which are for older people, as well as the existing commitment across London to the Lifetime Homes standard and wheelchair accessibility,” Richard adds.
LIFETIME HOMES
“We think there’s a real opportunity here in our town centres — London has something like 150 town centres – to not only increase the amount of residential housing in these locations but to do something which will help provide accessibility and services that people need on their doorstep,” Richard says.
“I think we’re at a really interesting point for the sector; it’s quite clear, given our ageing population, that we need to do more of this stuff. So this should act as a stimulus to the market; it’s an invitation to the market to be bold in what they’re proposing, and to put together some really creative thoughts and — if necessary — there is funding available from us to help them deliver schemes.”
Not that Lifetime Homes standards are incomprehensible. “Inclusive design is just about making sure you’re removing those barriers to people using and enjoying the property,” insists Paul Gamble. “It’s also recognising that when you build a home, it’s not just about the person who buys it, it’s about the second or third householder who lives there, the fact they have visitors, friends and neighbours. We know how to do it; the question is, will we?”
Article first published in Access magazine #24 (May 2015).
