After two weeks of festive fun and over indulgence it’s time to make our New Year’s Resolutions. Whilst we do think that quitting smoking, losing weight and taking up new hobbies are all noble efforts, this year at Blue Badge Style we’re aiming really high: we want to start an accessibility revolution in 2015. We want to change the way people approach accessibility and we want to vastly improve the way people find out about existing accessibility, particularly at hospitality venues. And we want you to join us in our accessibility revolution.
Using our now established three tick wishlist format, we’re taking a look at some of our goals for the upcoming year. We’re resolving not just to better ourselves but to work towards a revolution in accessibility in 2015 and beyond.
Something to know… We’re resolving to see the end of ‘reasonable adjustments’?
Good access makes economic sense for hospitality businesses: improving access literally opens doors to disabled customers and the power of the disabled pound to businesses. We’ve been saying this for a long time now and smarter businesses are beginning to cotton on. However, (foolish though it may be) bars, restaurants, hotels, shops and other businesses are still able to refuse to adapt their premises for disabled access on the grounds that it would be beyond ‘reasonable adjustment’.
The reasonable adjustment loophole in the 2010 Equality Act, which says that businesses need only make ‘reasonable adjustments’ to make sure that people of all levels of physical ability can access their premises, is currently too vague and lets inaccessible venues of the hook. It’s too difficult to pin them down on what is and isn’t ‘reasonable’ and frankly the current interpretation of unreasonable adjustment is itself unreasonable.
There are some (rare) occasions when it genuinely is not possible for a business to adapt, due to the age of the building and resources at hand, but there are far more instances where the ambiguity of the reasonable adjustments clause is used as an excuse to do nothing. For instance, it’s not unreasonable for a high street shop to have a portable ramp, it’s not unreasonable to put some grab rails to transform a Quasi Khazi into an adapted toilet for disabled customers (see above) and it is not unreasonable for a Michelin starred restaurant that can afford a new conservatory to also have a disabled toilet, but under the current rules these things are allowed to happen.
That is why in 2015 we resolve to begin working in earnest to close the reasonable adjustment loophole and require all businesses to provide disabled access onsite and an access statement online so that – if there is an explanation for difficult access – potential customers know what to expect before they visit.
Something to buy?…
This year we’re aiming to branch into something new and to use our expertise to help produce a brand new stylish accessory for wheelchair users.
Voting for the Style My Chair poll, which we conducted with Brunel University, has closed and we will soon be announcing which stylish wheelchair accessory design has won the competition. As our second resolution for 2015 we aim to do as much as we can to help put the winning design into production and bring some more style to wheelchairs around the country. It’s a whole new adventure for us as Blue Badge Style and we’ve seen from afar that getting mobility products onto the market can be an absolute nightmare. We’re not kidding ourselves and know that it’s a long and bumpy road – far from ideal for wheelchair users – but we’re hoping that by the end of 2015 we will be well down this road.
Something to do?… Join the Accessibility Revolution
Finally, the third resolution we’re looking to BBS Tick off this year is to keep on increasing the BBS website and app database of stylish and accessible hospitality venues. In particular, we want to make 2015 the year when we really start to work with our readership and community to add the places that you love to the Blue Badge Style guide. The ethos of Blue Badge Style has always been that of “Freedom Shared” and this year we want to really make it as much of a two way process as possible. We have a small and dedicated team of researchers and reviewers who have rated the stylishness and accessibility of almost one thousand venues so far. But there is so so much more to cover and we can do so much more with a little help from our readers.
If you know or go anywhere stylish please write in to tell us about it and we can add it to our ratings system. Whether it’s accessible or otherwise we want to be able to let other disabled people know, so that they can judge for themselves if they want to go. We believe that access should be universal and hopefully one day it will be, but until then it’s all about letting people know what to expect. Or in other words it’s all about Freedom Shared.
To submit a venue or for more information on what to look out for please contact us in 2015 with reviews!