Creating Inclusive Spaces | An Interview With Julie Fleck OBE
“ If I walk around the City of London today I can see improved accessibility in many buildings and on the streets because of the access work I began all those years ago. But there is still much to do – we cannot be complacent .”
Tell us about your career background?
I left university with a Geography degree and worked in a local authority planning department for nine years, first with Westminster Council, then with Wandsworth Council, where I studied part-time at the Polytechnic of Central London (now Westminster University) for a diploma in Town Planning. Wandsworth Association for Disabled People were very keen for the Planning Department to address access issues and raise awareness about the impact poor accessibility had on many disabled residents. So, I was asked to develop a planning policy and standards on access for disabled people.
This experience led me to apply for the post of Access Officer at the Corporation of London which absolutely changed my career. I became obsessed with making the environment more accessible! The City of London was very inaccessible in those days, but I was given an annual grant to spend on installing dropped kerbs, seats and tactile paving on the streets, and ramps, accessible toilets, lifts and induction loops in the Corporation’s buildings. This was very satisfying and gave me the skills and enthusiasm to take on the role of Inclusive Design Adviser at the Greater London Authority in 2001. I drafted the policies on inclusive design for the first London Plan, published by the Mayor of London in 2004, and these policies are still having an impact on the planning policies of all 33 London boroughs today.
The most exciting part of my career was, however, working on the planning applications for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The Games provided the opportunity to develop and showcase the highest standards of inclusive design. The result wasn't perfect but compared to any Games that had gone before, London 2012 was the most accessible.
After the Games, I was asked to join the Government’s Olympic and Paralympic Legacy Unit to lead a project on how to embed inclusive design into the education of built environment professionals. I had been delivering talks at different universities and professional institutions and luckily for me, when that project finished, I was asked by RIBA if I would write a book on inclusive design. My book ‘Are you an Inclusive Designer?’ was published in 2019.
“...I think working directly with a range of disabled people and finding out about how they experience the barriers in the built environment is very revealing. Parents with small children, older people, families with kids in pushchairs - everybody's got a view of how they prefer to access and use a building”.
Can you describe what an inclusive environment looks like?
It is different for everybody. I could walk through a building and say that it's accessible and meets minimum standards but does everyone have a similar experience of that building? That's the challenge. I think working directly with a range of disabled people and finding out how they experience the barriers in the built environment is very revealing. Parents with small children, older people, families with kids in pushchairs - everybody's got a view of how they prefer to access and use a building. It is the job of the designers, the architects and the planners to try and work out the best way to do that.
There are a number of good and bad examples in my book. One example is St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, designed by Sir Christopher Wren in 1666 after the Great Fire of London. It is an iconic and beautiful historic building, but with a huge flight of stairs up to the main entrance, one would think that it was never going to be made accessible. However, two symmetrical stone ramps have now been built on the north transept entrance. They're substantial ramps because it's a substantial level change, which might not suit everybody (there still a small lift at the south transept entrance if needed), but for those with powered chairs or scooters or for somebody who has the strength to propel themselves up and down, it makes a huge difference. So – if we can improve accessibility even in the most iconic of Grade 1 Listed Buildings - it can be done anywhere!
Entrance to St Paul’s Cathedral London, image courtesy of Julie Fleck
“It is about our attitude to disability - and realising that good inclusive design is good for everyone. A lot of people prefer to use a lift or ramp for reasons other than a physical disability, other than because they use a wheelchair. It is about choice, and if we all have the knowledge, skills and understanding, and engage effectively with people who have different lived experiences we can create a more equitable and fair built environment.”
Why does an inclusive environment matter?
It matters because if we don’t provide easy and safe access for everyone we compromise, we discriminate and we exclude. An inclusive environment serves different users with different preferences and provides choices. This is especially important in employment and employment buildings. If people can't use the building in a safe and comfortable way, then you exclude all that talent which is absolutely what Built By Us is all about, isn't it? It is about getting that diverse talent into employment.
Despite the substantial improvements we’ve made in policy, standards and legislation in the last 30 years, we've still got an awful lot to do. It is about our attitude to disability - and realising that good inclusive design is good for everyone. A lot of people prefer to use a lift or ramp for reasons other than a physical disability, other than because they use a wheelchair. It is about choice, and if we all have the knowledge, skills and understanding, and engage effectively with people who have different lived experiences we can create a more equitable and fair built environment.”
“...just a slight unevenness on the pavement can be really difficult and you think, well, our pavements are flat - but they're not flat. For a lot of people just negotiating an uneven, badly maintained pavement can be the difference between going out and staying at home and not going shopping or getting a job or working.”
Image of the Sill, National Landscape Discovery Centre. Image courtesy of NNPA, credit to Sally Ann Norman
What are the effects of a non-inclusive environment on users?
Well, I think COVID has illustrated that because we've all now experienced lockdown, and actually some people are still locked down and unable to go out and about and use the environment because our streets are not accessible. For a lot of disabled people and a lot of older people, that is the norm, it is their life, because they cannot get on the tube or they cannot negotiate the pavements. A friend of mine broke her ankle in the summer and has had her leg in a cast so she's been unable to walk. Now, when she is going down the street, just a slight unevenness on the pavement can be really difficult. You think our pavements are flat - but they're not flat. For a lot of people just negotiating an uneven, badly maintained pavement can be the difference between going out and staying at home and not going shopping or getting a job or working and being very isolated.
Working from home has made a huge difference to many people who don't have to commute and don't have to negotiate those bad pavements or the inaccessible transport system, but it's also very isolating. I think a lot of people feel isolated and cut off because they're not meeting and socialising with others, in a safe environment. This is the norm for many people, but it doesn’t have to be. We need to be very aware of the impact that not creating a fully inclusive environment has.
How can designers keep users at the centre of their designs?
When the British Standard BS8300 was revised in 2018 - this is the standard on the design for an accessible and inclusive environment - a new section was added, Section Four, which says that you think about inclusive design at the very beginning of every project. What tends to happen is people only think about access and inclusion when the local authority asks them to, as part of their planning application, or building application. But that's too late. Access and inclusion need to be embedded from the outset. RIBA, the Royal Institute of British Architects, have added inclusive design to stage zero in their Plan of Work - when you start your strategic vision when you start to develop the brief, and you work with a client. This is the stage when you need to think about accessibility and inclusive design. If you don't have it built into that strategic vision, into the very initial brief, you will end up compromising. If it's part of the language from day one you will budget for it, you will employ access consultants who have the expertise to advise you (you may not always recognise what you don't know) and you will then be able to integrate inclusive design into the whole development process.
In my book, I’ve outlined ‘The Practice of Inclusive Design’, which has four elements. One is the Inclusive Development Process, - you start right from the very beginning and make inclusive design integral to the procurement process. A good example is how The London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC), which manage the developments in and around Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, built inclusive design into their procurement and tendering processes. Even before submitting a planning application, when tendering to do a project for the LLDC, they require an explanation of how you are making it inclusive and how you are going to manage that inclusive design process. It's right up there at the very beginning of the conversation. It’s important not to wait until you submit a planning application because it's too late by then, and even more so for a building application because you can't change the designs very easily once they are fixed. Always aim for the highest standards of access inclusion. If you aim for the minimum to meet the regulations, then you are going to fail. A lot of architects think they understand it, but they may only understand the basics. If they don't work with expert access consultants and directly with disabled people and other people with lived experience of barriers, they won't fully understand it.
Can you recommend any projects which are inclusive?
I've got some good case studies in my book. I like the Sill National Landscape Discovery Centre, the visitor centre in Northumberland National Park beside Hadrian's Wall. It's been well designed and is a beautiful building nestled into the landscape. It's been very sensitively done given the environment that it sits in, but it's also got a variety of ways of getting into the building. You can park your car in a blue badge parking bay and wheel or walk to the front door. It has an automatic front door and a big, wide, and welcoming reception area with seating. There's lift access or stair access up to the cafe on the first floor. It also has a youth hostel adjacent to it, which has some wheelchair accessible bedrooms.
Image of the Sill, National Landscape Discovery Centre. Image courtesy of NNPA, credit to Sally Ann Norman
But what is really exciting is the other route into the building if you come by bus. You can walk from the main road and up a gentle ramp that takes you to the first floor café and continues all the way around to the top of the building, along a grass roof. Part of the idea is that as you go up you are learning about the grasses, the flowers and the plants that can be found in that part of Northumberland. It's an accessible, educational experience and you can sit at the top of the ramped grass roof and look out over the beautiful landscape of Northumberland National Park, which is really nice.
Recently at COP26, Israel’s energy minister, Karine Elharrar, could not attend the conference.
It is natural to expect that a world event on this scale will be inclusive for all, so it was shocking to learn that Elharrar could not reach the conference grounds because the only options to get there from the gathering area where to walk or board a shuttle that was not wheelchair-friendly. How can we ensure that these situations do not happen?
Wasn't it absolutely outrageous that that happened? This goes back to the point about employing Access Consultants who really understand the issues and know what advice to give. I don't know whether they had advice and I don't know anything about it but just like you, I just saw the headline that she was left outside for two hours trying to get in. There is a real failure here around the whole policy. I think what it shows is that it's not just about the building, it's about the whole thing, the training that the staff have received, how it's actually managed on the day, right down to the person who's at the gates.
Going back to the Olympics, it involved a huge amount of work. They had an Access and Inclusion Integration Panel, that included people from all aspects of the Games, as well as the designers, the building managers, the Olympic Delivery Authority, and the London Organising Committee. They also had people who were responsible for ticketing, for transport - from Network Rail and from Transport for London, for staff training. They did a huge amount of staff training. They had disability equality awareness courses for all of the staff and all the volunteers as well. They all had to go through a training programme around accessibility so that when they met any individual they responded appropriately. I'm sure that it wasn’t perfect because it was a massive undertaking, but that's what should have happened at Glasgow. They should have used the Inclusive Development Process, not just around the building itself, but right through to staff training, for everybody. It's a bit ironic that the focus was Climate, but they failed in this. It sounds awful, but in a way, it's quite useful that it actually hit the headlines because it raised awareness. This kind of thing happens all the time to people who get left on trains because there isn’t ramped access. We've still got a long way to go despite the improvements in the last 30 years.
Where can we get more information on inclusive environments?
If you want to get an Access Consultant on board on your team, there is the National Register of Access Consultants. Some of them are brilliant and really good and very experienced. You need to choose your consultant carefully and make sure you get what you want. You can also contact the Access Association which have members across the country.
For more on Inclusive Design, check out Julie’s book Are you An Inclusive Designer (available at all good bookshops)
Julie has been advising on the creation of an accessible and inclusive environment for the last 30 years. As the Principal Access and Inclusive Design Adviser at the Greater London Authority, she was responsible for the inclusive design and accessible housing policies in the London Plan. Following the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, Julie was seconded to the Office for Disability Issues as the Project Lead for the Government's Paralympic Legacy BEPE Project (the Built Environment Professional Education Project). She is a Design Council Built Environment Expert, a member of the British Standards B/559 Committee, and in 2004 was awarded the OBE for services to disabled people.