One of the major concerns for businesses in London for the next 12 months – in fact, in the run up to the Olympics, accessibility is one of the key action points being considered the world over, focusing in on London.
Various measures focused on achievements
One of the things that has been flagged is that everything is focused on ensuring that everyone is comfortable – from mothers with small children, to those that are blind, deaf, unable to walk (far or at all), and those that are considered able bodied. From ensuring that more people are on hand at venues to help, to the need to ensure that everywhere that people would like to be is as accessible as possible, access statements were created for the venues that were being built from scratch. These designs make the most of the best British style modern architecture, but are also perfectly balanced to ensure that access is not only easy, but can be enjoyed. Ultimately, the ability to access and enjoy events will be directly proportional to the access available at the events themselves – uncomfortable, insecure or difficult to access buildings will ruin the feeling and support of the event for the people attending. It’s of vital importance to understand however, that the access to any building has to be of the best quality possible. Over multiple buildings, it’s also important to be consistent.
Access for older buildings
It’s of critical importance to understand that newer buildings can be designed around needs, but with space at a premium in London, the Olympics creates an issue with building designs and updates. The only way to solve this is an in depth access audit – in these cases, the expertise of the building designers that you need to work with – and the expertise of working with the space available. This requires a very specific auditing mindset – one that many businesses need to track down.
Access audits need to be handled with care too – not only will the quality of the building itself stand for the needs of the users and give them the support they need to ensure that they’ve got access, but it also needs to be of high quality – it can’t be done in a rush either – which can show poor quality in ways that many businesses might not consider.
Finally, it’s important to ensure that the access audits are designed around the building itself – while many audit systems are designed around checklists, flexibility is key to ensuring that your building is designed the way you need it.
One of the major ways to do this is to hire an auditor that works with the best aspects of your needs – an expert can ensure that your buildings are supported, no matter what the need.
