RNIB Response to the Public Consultation on Brunswick Square -Walking and Cycling Improvements

RNIB response to the Public Consultation on Brunswick Square -Walking and Cycling Improvements

About RNIB

RNIB is the largest organisation of blind and partially sighted people in the UK. We are a membership organisation with over 24,000 members. Our members are predominantly blind, partially sighted or have friends and family who have sight loss. Over ninety per cent of RNIB Charity trustees are blind or partially sighted.

We campaign for the rights of blind and partially sighted people in each of the UK’s countries. Our priorities are to:

• Be there for people losing their sight.

• Support independent living for blind and partially sighted people.

• Create a society that is inclusive of blind and partially sighted people's interests and needs.

• Stop people losing their sight unnecessarily.

We provide expert knowledge to business and the public sector through consultancy on improving the accessibility of information, the built environment, technology, products and services.

RNIB regularly supports blind and partially sighted people to make the built environment more accessible. We also advise decision makers, such as local authorities, on how to make the built environment more accessible for blind and partially sighted people.

RNIB welcomes the opportunity to respond to the Public Consultation on the Brunswick Square Walking and Cycling improvements.

About sight loss in the UK and Camden

Almost two million people in the UK are living with sight loss that has a serious impact on their daily lives and activities. This equates to almost one person in thirty, whose ability to access the pedestrian environment is potentially limited or compromised by their visual impairment. It is predicted that by 2050 the number of people with sight loss in the UK will double to nearly four million.

Although sight loss affects people of all ages, as we get older we are increasingly likely to experience sight loss and in the UK one in five people aged 75 and over are living with sight loss. This rises to one in two people over the age of 90.

Around 360,000 people are registered blind or partially sighted in the UK. According to RNIB’s sight loss data tool we estimate there are 1600 people who are registered blind or partially sighted in Camden with many more living with some degree of sight loss which will impact upon their independent mobility.

In addition given the location of RNIB’s headquarters just down the road in Judd Street, there are likely to be significantly more blind and partially sighted people in the area than would ordinarily be expected (see below).

RNIB Headquarters

As noted on the consultation document, RNIB has its headquarters building, including a flagship Customer Service Centre, on Judd Street. This Customer Service Centre is visited by thousands of blind and partially sighted customers from across London and the UK each year. We also have many blind and partially sighted staff, volunteers and trustees, working in and/or visiting the building.

Lack of consultation

Given the location of RNIB’s headquarters and the controversial nature of the proposals, it is somewhat surprising that no attempt was made to consult with RNIB in advance of the publication of the consultation.

Equality Impact Assessment

As a public authority, Camden Council is subject to the Public Sector Equality Duty and is required to have "due regard" to equality outcomes in everything it does. In particular, the Council is required to ensure that it eliminates discrimination, advances equality of opportunity and fosters good relations between, amongst others, disabled and non-disabled people.

Given the proposal affects the location of the headquarters of a large national disability charity, we would have expected Camden to undertake an initial equality impact assessment in order to understand what the potential impact of this proposal would be on blind and partially sighted people living in the area and visiting and working in RNIB HQ. It does not appear that Camden has complied with this duty. Clearly consultation with RNIB would have been the starting point for any assessment.

The design is also impacted by the substantive provisions of the Equality Act which makes it unlawful for a service provider/those providing a public function to discriminate. This includes the requirement to make reasonable adjustments where a physical feature puts a disabled person at a substantial disadvantage in comparison to a person who is not disabled. The duty to make reasonable adjustments is anticipatory in that it requires consideration of, and action in relation to, barriers disabled people face in accessing services/public function before an individual disabled person makes use of a particular service/public function.

How blind people navigate the built environment

The National Federation of the Blind of the UK has produced a guidance note to assist Local Authorities in the creation of fully accessible streetscapes. This was distributed by the Department of Transport to over 3,000 professionals working in the field in order to provide additional advice (to that contained in the Local Transport Note 1/11 on Shared Space and the Manual for Streets), on designing shared space from the point of view of blind and partially sighted people. This document provides a helpful explanation of how blind and partially sighted people navigate the street environment: -

“1.4 Blind people fall into two categories; a small number who will use a guide dog, and the majority who use a long white cane to scan the ground in front of their feet to detect and identify the memorised features and hazards along their journey.

1.5 People who are registered blind may have a small amount of residual vision, but many have no sight at all, so that their sensory ability is equal to that of a sighted person wearing a blindfold. Despite this serious disability many blind people will have been walking through their town streets successfully for many years without being able to see where they are going, having memorised the layout and positions of the standard street infrastructure items which are detectable at ground level. The identification of such items as kerbs, tactile paving, controlled crossings, lamp standards, bus stops and much more will tell them their position along their memorised route.

1.6 In a traditional street a blind person will walk confidently and safely along the footway between building frontages on one side and a kerb on the other, either of which will be detected with their long cane should they drift to either side. When stepping onto a crossing with the aid of tactile paving the blind person needs to be sure that the traffic has been signalled to stop, this being confirmed by the audible beeping, or the rotating of the knurled knob under the control box after the crossing button has been pressed. The blind pedestrian must then decide when it is safe to step out in front of any approaching vehicles which they cannot see.

1.7 At such Puffin crossings the audible beeping from the opposite side of the road then guides the blind pedestrian safely across, preventing them from drifting off the side of the crossing before they reach the other side of the road. This audible guidance is of great value because there is usually no detectable edge on either side of the crossing itself, and without any such guidance a blind white cane user may unknowingly cross the road diagonally, arriving at the other side at an unexpected location.”

Impact of shared space on blind people

Shared space schemes present enormous difficulties for blind and partially sighted people. As the NFB guidance, states: -

1.10 It is not possible for a person with no sight (or a sighted person who is blindfolded) to walk for more than a few steps in a straight line without any guidance, so in Shared Spaces or other areas where all surface features have been removed, it is easy to get disorientated, and is particularly frightening for blind people to find themselves walking among moving vehicles without even being sure of the direction in which they are facing.

1.11 Walking along a busy Street between the kerb and the buildings without being able to see anything is stressful enough, so most blind people will regard places where kerbs and crossings have been removed as being hazardous, No Go areas from which they are excluded, even though they may have previously walked this route for many years.

With regard to kerbs the guidance states: -

2.0 HIGH KERBS, LOW KERBS OR NO KERBS?

2.1 Some designers like to lower kerbs or to remove them entirely, although there appears to be no practical or financial reason for doing so. Standard height kerbs (100 – 150mm high) will provide the following significant advantages:

2.2 All motorists recognise that kerbs indicate pedestrian areas onto which they must not drive.

2.3 Bumping up over a standard height kerb without first stopping, is normally avoided by drivers because the impact can cause damage to the suspension and alloy wheels of some vehicles.

2.4 Lowered or removed kerbs will encourage some motorists to swerve onto the footway to park or to pass on the nearside of other vehicles waiting at road junctions, so bollards, planters or handrails may need to be added later to protect vulnerable pedestrians on such footways.

2.5 Where vehicles are allowed to drive onto footways, it may be necessary to reinforce the footway foundations to protect the underlying electricity, gas, telephone and water services from damage by subsidence caused by the wheels of heavy vehicles.

2.6 Standard height kerbs are convenient for boarding and alighting from buses and taxis, and much less hazardous than raised footway platforms which cannot be moved.

2.7 Guide dogs may not recognise lowered or removed kerbs, and walk across them instead of stopping as they are taught, thereby endangering their owners.

2.8 When a guide dog steps over a kerb, the vertical movement of his harness handle tells the owner that their next step will be up or down a kerb. With a low kerb this vertical handle movement is imperceptible and the guide dog owner may then be presented with an unexpected tripping hazard.

2.9 Guide dogs, white cane users and also many motorists will not recognise a coloured or textured line across a flat surface as indicating the edge of a footway.

In February 2015 RNIB published a report about barriers that blind and partially sighted people face in accessing the built environment. This included a section on “shared space” which detailed the results of a survey showing that over half of the 500 blind people who responded to the survey reported that new public realm developments in their locality made it either a little harder or much harder for them to get about. 40% reported that they were either using the area less or avoiding it altogether. Two thirds of respondents had not been consulted about the changes in their locality and a Freedom of Information request sent out to Local Authorities in England revealed very few had evidence of robust consultation policies in place for these schemes, and none were able to provide figures on how many accessible versions of planning information they had sent out.

On 1 July 2015, Lord Holmes of Richmond published Accidents By Design – The Holmes Report on Shared Space. This Report found that sixty-three per cent of respondents (sighted and non-sighted) reported a negative experience of shared space. Thirty-five per cent of those who responded said they actively avoided shared space, in other words over a third of people felt that they had been excluded from their local community, their local shops and their local support services. The Report recommended an immediate moratorium on all shared space schemes until thorough impact assessments could be conducted, combined with a central record of accident data. The Report also recommended a need for updated guidance to enable Local Authorities to fully understand their obligations, not least in relation to anti-discrimination legislation.

In September 2015 The Institute of Highways Technicians made a statement in response to Accidents by Design. It stated that:-

“… the IHE was concerned with the recent safety and mobility issues being highlighted by users of shared space junctions across the UK.

Shared space schemes remove regulations and features such as kerbs, road surface markings, traffic signs and controlled crossings. The number of shared space schemes is increasing, with many local authorities planning new schemes, despite the inherent difficulties.

The Accident by Design report found that people’s experiences of shared space schemes are overwhelmingly negative.

Over a third of people actively avoid shared space schemes and 63 per cent of people who have used shared space schemes rated their experience as poor.

According to the report, overzealous councils are risking public safety with fashionable ‘simplified’ street design and there has been significant under-reporting of accidents in shared space.

It is important that the professional institutions take note of the conclusions of this report and start to review current guidance and practices.

Lord Holmes report suggests that many disabled groups are being disadvantaged and are avoiding the benefits of the newly created pedestrian environments.

We need to ensure that careful consideration is given to the impact new schemes will have on all disabled groups.

The report’s key recommendations include an immediate moratorium on shared space schemes while impact assessments are conducted.

It also calls for an urgent need for accessibility audits of all shared space schemes and a central record of accident data including “courtesy crossings”, which must be defined and monitored.

The report also recommends that the Department for Transport updates their guidance so that Local Authorities better understand their responsibilities under the Equalities Act.

The highways industry needs to take this report on-board and to work towards creating shared spaces that are accessible to all.”

The UK Government’s response to Lord Holmes’s report has been very encouraging. Although shared space planning comes under Local Authority responsibility ratherthan Government, the Minister Andrew Jones MP has written from the Department for Transport (DfT) to all Local Authorities in the UK asking for details of any schemes. TheMinister has also asked DfT officials to use this evidence, and participate further, increating better guidelines about shared space with the Chartered Institution ofHighways and Transportation. This process is still underway.

Experience of shared space in other areas

RNIB regularly receives reports of inaccessible shared space schemes and is frequently involved in campaigning and lobbying activity to ensure that new Public Realm Schemes are accessible. RNIB is also aware of a number of reports from campaigners of accidents occurring in existing shared space schemes, apparently resulting from courtesy crossings and lowered kerbs. RNIB would be happy to share this information with the Camden.1

RNIB is also aware of a number of areas where remedial works are proposed or have been undertaken after the existing design has proved to be unsatisfactory or to have placed pedestrians at risk: -

• Hackbridge – Courtesy crossing removed following a road safety and accessibility audit which showed that the crossing was unsafe and disadvantaged certain sections of the community;

• Grimsby – number of accidents apparently resulting from a low kerb and insufficient differentiation with the carriageway.Road since resurfaced and formal crossing installed following complaints from residents including blind and partially sighted people and accidents

• Stoke – Council recently announced changes to kerb (60mm) following complaints about tripping hazard

• Incidents reported in Stockton, Hereford, Pontypridd all resulting from low kerbs and inadequate differentiation with the pavement

• In a number of other areas, e.g. Warwick and Gloucesterformalised crossings have been (re)installed following complaints from local residents including blind and partially sighted people.

Better consultation and the need for professional advice

From RNIB’s experience of the implementation of shared space schemes around the UK there is a need for much more inclusive and wide ranging consultation practices amongst Local Authorities and others responsible for shared space schemes.

As noted above, it does not appear that Camden made any attempt to engage with local blind and partially sighted people living in Camden (and RNIB) who would be particularly (and adversely) affected by the scheme on a day-to-day basis and who would not be aware of plans via the usual routes/formats.

In addition to thorough consultation with blind and partially sighted people and their representatives, RNIB believes that local authorities etc also need to take professional advice on the accessibility of the scheme in the same way that they take professional advice on other aspects of their schemes. Sometimes, the needs of various disability groups do not coincide for example the different needs of wheelchair users and blind people with regard to kerbs, and a professional view needs to be taken as to the most appropriate solution. Professional access advice (from a Disability Access Consultant) will also pick up on any access issues that have not arisen during the consultation (with lay persons) and which may otherwise only become apparent following completion of the scheme and subsequent incidents.