A new accessibility strategy, created with input from disabled people, has reached the final stage before it is formally adopted.
Brighton and Hove City Council’s five-year Accessible City Strategy is designed to go beyond what the Equalities Act requires.
The new strategy has included input from disabled people after an open invitation to participate last year.
Members of the council’s Equalities, Community Safety and Human Rights Committee backed the 102-page strategy – expected to stay in place until 2028.
It will now go before the council’s Finance, Strategy and City Regeneration Committee before it is formally adopted as policy.
The strategy said: “Our vision is to be a council that is welcoming, inclusive and accessible, going beyond the legal minimum when providing barrier-free services that promote independence and equity of access, opportunity and representation for disabled people and their diverse identities.
“Our councillors and council staff truly understand the varied lived experiences and systemic barriers faced by disabled people who live, work and visit the city and we all do the necessary work year on year to embed accessibility and disability-inclusion in how we think and act as a service provider and employer.
“We are a council that proactively uses its role as civic leader to influence businesses, creatives, visitors and other public services to make accessibility part of the city’s culture and lead by example.
“The city and we, as the council, are a beacon of change to residents, organisations and local authorities nationwide.”
Approximately one in five Brighton and Hove residents – or 51,797 people – are defined as disabled under the Equalities Act.
Labour councillor Amanda Grimshaw praised the strategy for using the term “inclusive adjustments” during the meeting at Brighton Town Hall on Tuesday 11 July.
The council’s head of communities, equality and third sector Emma McDermott said that, by using the term “inclusive adjustments”, the strategy showed that the council aimed to support disabled people beyond the legislative minimum.
She said: “It’s not just a reasonable adjustment. We’re not making it adequate. We’re being inclusive.”
Possability People chief executive Geraldine Des Moulins, who chaired the disability panel that provided advice to help develop action plans, was singled out for praise for her work. She is due to retire at the end of the month.
Ms McDermott said: “I’ve had the pleasure of working with her for the 17 years I’ve worked in the council. She’s been in the city a lot longer.
“She’s never wavered from her commitment. She’s never wavered from saying what needs to be said and has always put the residents at the heart of it.”
The organisations involved included Mind, the Grace Eyre Foundation, Speak Out, Amaze and the MS Society.
What a good commitment. Definitely a positive stance to have, and one that I personally align with. Why do just the bare minimum, when we can do so much better than that?
Hopefully they’ll extend this attitude to the blatantly ableist and cold staff working at Homemove. There is a whole bunch of disabled people in this city, myself included that continue to be shut out of a system that should be there for us.
I fought for three years to be seen and was met with nothing with contempt and disregard by them. Eventually they told me no because “we’ve looked at Google maps and there’s a bus stop 3 minutes from your house” I live on the mountain that is Hanover and struggle a great deal with this and many other things, and they don’t care at all. The whole team want replacing and I won’t be celebrating any supposed “inclusion” they want to brag about until they put their money where their mouth is. The truth is that this council couldn’t care less about us!!
I certainly agree with you 💯
The council staff wouldn’t know any level of accessibility if it jumped up and punched them in the face. They have never done even the bare minimum, with disabled people having to constantly fight to get even basic planning laws adhered to. Their own services are as bad if not worse than anything or anywhere else you might encounter here, however much they tell you they care about the law and have considered your needs. It’s all words until things change, and they’re going to have to do a complete 180 before disabled people living here gain any trust after years of abuse and gaslighting at the council’s hands.
Sounds positive for the future of Brighton and Hove well done all involved.