The impact of the Disability Discrimination Act on historic buildings
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Melanie Smith BSc, FRICS, CIAT, NRAC Consultant is a senior lecturer in the School of the Built Environment at Leeds Metropolitan University. She is a Chartered Building Surveyor and Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. She sits on the RICS DDA Working Party and is a consultant member of the National Register of Access Consultants. Having gained a first class honours degree in building technology from UMIST, she worked as a building control officer with Leeds City Council, and set up her consultancy business in 1988.
Abstract This paper is based on a presentation given to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors Weekend Briefing for Building Surveyors on the subject of the Disability Discrimination Act and historic buildings. Historic buildings can pose challenges when services need to be provided in a building with public access, and these need intelligent solutions. The case study provides helpful examples of solutions for practitioners in the field.
Keywords: historic buildings, listed buildings, Disability Discrimination Act (DDA), service providers, UK, access audit
INTRODUCTION This paper is based on a presentation given to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors Weekend Briefing for Building Surveyors on the subject of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA) and historic buildings. It is not a research paper but a review of current understanding of the impact for historic buildings. There is a level of concern that providing access to historic buildings is unreasonable because the features which people wish to retain are often the ones which would be destroyed by providing access. This opinion remains despite the fact that 95 per cent of people who have a disability do not use a wheelchair, and despite the evidence of access being provided in many historical buildings.
DISABILITY DISCRIMINATION ACT 1995
School of the Built Environment Leeds Metropolitan University Leeds LS2 8BU, UK Tel: þ44 (0)113 283 1990 Fax: þ44 (0)113 283 3190 E-mail: [email protected]
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The DDA has often been presented as being radical because it requires changes to existing buildings, which even fire safety legislation has not normally required, provided there have been no other material changes. But does it actually require alterations to buildings by law? The answer is that it could do, as a last resort, where an obstacle is so severe that there is no other way around it, access past or through the obstacle is absolutely necessary for all concerned, and it would be reasonable in all the
q PALGRAVE MACMILLAN LTD 1742–8262/06 $30.00
Journal of Building Appraisal
VOL.2 NO.1
PP 52–61
The DDA and historic buildings
The focus of the Act is on results, not method
circumstances to make that alteration, but this would be a very unusual situation. Part 3 of the DDA is a piece of legislation designed to avoid people who are disabled being discriminated against because of their disability when trying to access certain services. Discrimination is likely to occur because of an obstacle, which
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