‘In the Government’s Levelling Up Agenda, for disabled people- I’m concerned that nowhere in the new activities being funded is there a requirement for accessibility. And in terms of employment, no money is being put into changing the attitudes of employers, all focus is put on the individual. It doesn’t matter what training you’ve done- if employers have particular attitudes, you aren’t going to get the job. When I say accessibility, I’m thinking in terms of the built environment where there is a lot of money going. In housing, there really should be an enforceable, minimum number of accessible homes produced but I can’t see it happening.’

‘I do some work on Scarborough Council, a coastal community, where we recently had a visit from Professor Chris Whitty, to talk about health inequalities in the town. I was there to put the point across about housing within coastal communities. We’re quite behind on a lot of projects because we’ve been under Tory rule for about 20 years our borough, so everything’s been completely left up to the markets. What we’ve found is that 70% of houses that have been built haven’t even come up to their standards. When you look at some of the statistics, housing stock that meet the standards, you’re talking even less than that- about  67% of housing  that is adequate.

In Scarborough, and I’m sure in other coastal resorts, we don’t have enough social housing, we have over 2000 people out of a population of 100,000, waiting on a housing list. There is a massive reliance on private accommodation, a lot of this is hotels that have been bought up and turned into HMOs. This is the affordable housing in Scarborough basically. You have a choice of living on the top floor of a HMO or terraced housing that is impossible to heat or make accessible. There’s a lot of effort going into building new properties. As we’re a small council, we’re doing a joint venture with a private developer and a social landlord and the borough council donates land which the developer can then work with, so we take control over the houses that are built. It’s not just affordable housing it’s also for adaptable housing, which seems to be cheaper for disabled people as it becomes housing for life. People can basically adapt it to their future needs in later life.

Another thing that needs to be looked at is planning regulations, because one problem we have in coastal resorts is a lot of what was private rented accommodation- people have been evicted to turn it into AirBnb. There’s no legislation that can stop this. Another thing is predatory private companies masquerading as social housing providers who buy up all the cheap housing stock, and because they’re often under 6 bedrooms, they don’t need planning permission to change them into HMOs. So what they do is buy affordable housing within the town and turn it into HMOs. Because the local authority won’t work with them as they’re housing benefit exempt, so they charge things like £200/£300 for a room per week- claiming it is supported housing, they’re bringing people from other areas. What we find is that what was our affordable housing is filling up with people who it’s not reasonable housing for them. People from cities etc. There needs to be changes to planning regulation to stop normal housing stock being turned into HMOs. They get around it by buying houses with under 6 bedrooms and masquerading as a housing provider but turn out massive profits.’

‘My parents split up recently and I’ve had to go through the process of dealing with council housing for the first time. I didn’t find it very disability friendly.  You go to the housing office and sit with everyone else and you only get 5 minutes for an enquiry and then you’re gone, it’s not very disability friendly. I think that you need to make sure that when you are dealing with council services that they should have the option of it being disability friendly obviously. The online bidding system is not friendly for disabled people and the system could be better explained to people. Process needs to support disabled people throughout. What is the presence of trade unions in other places of the country like? Because that could help in terms of fighting against the housing providers.’

‘One of the issues is a lack of national standards regarding building new homes. It’s dependent on the local plan, I’m not an expert, I’m a member of a DPO. We would advocate that all new homes are built to M42 standard with some as M43 wheelchair accessible standard for disabled people. That’s already a part of the London plan but it does seem to vary across the country.

Another point I’d like to raise is that we spent a lot of time consulting members and responding to the raising accessibility standards for new homes consultation. And I don’t know how far along we are now, 14/15 months on, but we are still waiting for the report on that.

‘ Following on from that, is that many government consultations aren’t available in accessible formats. When I asked for the raising accessibility standards consultation in easy read, so I could share with our members, we  were told it was not available. You may be aware that a Human rights consultation was not available in easy read until people challenged the government. People talk  about consulting with disabled people but If it’s not available in an accessible format then it’s not a consultation.’

‘I’m on the homes and communities board in my local area and It took me repeated attempts to put in a requirement for a minimum amount of accessible housing within the local plan, but that every iteration that came back, it had been dropped in favour of 100% accessible and adaptable housing. They’re not synonymous. You can’t be 100% of both!

Eventually we got it through on the local plan which means we have a mechanism for preventing people going to appeal and getting away with not doing it. Except that our regional council has failed to agree its spatial plan with the government so all the local plans are invalid in terms of what is legally enforced which is ridiculous. They’re on the fourth iteration of the local plan- that’s how long we’ve waited for them to resolve the spatial plan.

There are two things I’d like people to take on board here.One is the wheelchair standards that so called accessible and adaptable houses a re built to houses are built to. These aren’t fit for purpose. Wheelchairs are longer and wider now than when dimensions were agreed. People were more likely to be using a manual than an electric equipment, which is no longer the case. So called adaptable homes aren’t adaptable for two reasons. One is they don’t accommodate large enough mobility equipment to be adaptable- basic things like the hallway being too narrow. The other is that the way houses that are meant to be adaptable are constructed makes it unnecessarily expensive to adapt them which means the local authority, government and individuals all lose out. I’m referring to things like if adaptable properties were built with a lintel over every doorway that was wide enough to fit a sufficiently wide door when it is needed, so for an 800mm space. Or, if there was one extra piece of material in a shower room so you could retrofit shower seats by screwing the seat into the wall rather than reinforcing the whole wall first. There’s issues around where joists and beams are that should be places where people may need a ceiling hoist in the future. This would all save possibly millions of pounds for the council and individuals and government. Need an integrated approach to co-produce a solution with disabled people as they know what needs to be done that would benefit both sides.

The other thing is that we are supposed to have visitable standards which aren’t being enforced. i.e. level access downstairs, downstairs toilet, hallway for turning. None of this is being abided by in new housing plans which get through nonetheless.’

‘I’m on a couple of disability forums and we have lots of members who are interested in this project regarding housing. This does need looking into. Disabled people need to have wider doorways, as has been mentioned and there needs to be specific budgets set aside for disability housing in the future.’

‘ I just want to touch on homelessness. I’ve recently been helping a homeless man who was disabled by his homelessness with mental illness. There is a problem with going to the council and the screening processes for going into accommodation. I don’t think people should be given a free run for years on end, but if there was the option for people to be given short term accommodation to spend some time alone. It would be good to have some temporary accommodation where people don’t need to be registered in the short term.’

‘Regarding future legislation, we are heavily reliant on private accommodation in coastal areas. Strengthening for selective licensing would be something to take a look at. I see a lot on the mental health side regarding private rented accommodation- damp can affect people’s lungs and if you live around people who are anti-social that can affect mental health even further. But selective licensing can be really useful. It seems daft that you can only have a percentage of houses in a certain area with these licensing. Because of the deprivation in some areas, you can only have two places at once and you can’t have selective licensing elsewhere. If selective licensing could be strengthened, we could check accommodation and make sure that its suitable for people’s needs. There’s other sides  of selective licensing, such as the involvement of the police and fire services, it just makes sure that conditions are better. This would improve situation for people in private rented accommodation, on which disabled people are heavily reliant.’

‘On private landlords: I rented out my house when I was working abroad. I had to go through strict standards on fire doors, mould, fixings etc. I’ve worked as a nurse and have been to some converted properties like hotels and I don’t understand how some landlords get away with poor standards in rented properties on a mass scale.  There seems to be difference between individual landlord and developers or property magnates. Standards should be the same for everyone.
One other thing- I’ve been following the Royal society of architects who have a plan to stop retrofitting as it has VAT added to it whereas new builds are VAT exempt. You’re not always getting the best offers on retrofitted properties. The VAT puts a lot of people off retrofitting.’

‘ I’m pleased we are talking about homelessness and disabled people. I’m on a housing working group in a disabled people’s coalition, and last year we did some work on this issue. Anecdotally, we found that disabled people are over-represented in the homelessness population but we found it difficult to get any statistics about it. One of the things that kept coming up is that homelessness services are inaccessible for disabled people. Services would recognise the physical barriers to services, but weren’t so aware of mental health problems or people who are neurodivergent. We came across lots of incidents where people would be put in temporary accommodation, but it was inaccessible because of light and noise. If they left they would be seen as making themselves homeless.  The other thing that people often raise is the lack of support for tenancies, resulting in failed tenancies and people ending up homeless again.’

‘ We’re talking a lot about rented housing, but shouldn’t we be making it easier for people on benefits to get mortgages, that’s a difficult area I think, and does include right to buy. It’s nigh on impossible for a disabled person in a local authority home to get a Right to buy mortgage, I think that’s something we should be making it easier to get. Another point is on the DFG: form what I hear; people are appreciative of the DFG but it is the process that is the issue- it takes so long. You can’t start work on DFG, and the wait is so long for local authority decisions and assessments and it can take up to a year to pass. A year is a very long time if you are waiting for an adaptation that you really need.’

‘Estate agents don’t have to make things accessible or adaptable or anything like that. You can turn up to properties and they can just be totally inappropriate. Is there any scope for having a rating for private rental agents to show accessibility or the potential to make private rented accommodation adaptable? There’s no indication before you view a property if a place will be accessible.’

‘Something I wanted to raise that applies to all social housing but potentially on new build homes: people often forget that you need parking close by.  We had a case where someone been moved into an accessible home, and they were able to move in, but there was nowhere to park close enough the authority would not take down the front wall for the person to be able to park in the space outside their home. We need to remember that accessibility also means being able to park close by. Some councils charge for a discretionary parking space outside the home just to meet their deficits. Those two things together are, in my view, discriminatory and it ultimately wastes money to put someone in a home that isn’t accessible.’

‘We need to make every building as accessible as possible, but I think there is a need to be realistic and say that by 2030 for example, that every building needs to be as accessible as possible. Some of my friends live in buildings, old, converted buildings where there is no lift access. I think we need a  big vision about making houses accessible. Then we can build towards it with an end goal in sight.’

‘Following on form that; in a forum I work with, we are focussing on building a relationship with companies like architects or project managers to give feedback on accessibility needs to ensure it is fed-in to the project before the building work starts. Going forward, we should establish it with housing offices that we’re working with them not against them. With that approach, it makes them release that they themselves could be disabled or mobility issues in the future. If you plan now 50 years down the line it won’t be as much as an issue. Disabled people need to be involved in the early stages’

‘On supported housing:  I often say to people, not all disabled people want to live in supported housing- many live with other people and families and want to live with other people. Another issue is that young disabled people face issues when leaving home. Often private rental homes, shared houses or flats, is often not an option for them as homes aren’t accessible. I come across many young disabled people who are desperate to leave home but can’t and also aren’t prioritised with social housing.’

‘Just following up on that, in terms of young disabled people going to university. My neighbour’s daughter has a disability and she requires her own bathroom and living in a shared house it would be too embarrassing for her to share a bathroom with everyone else. There are very few places that would accommodate that at university accommodation. In the end she had to leave the shared accommodation because things fell apart and she couldn’t afford to live alone’

‘Just following on from the point of where disabled people live. I’m looking to move out of my current place right now. I was lucky in my 20s I mainly lived on friends’ sofas which put me in a delusional bubble to an extent, with mainly having a good time. Now I think we need to get ambitious about disabled people. What can communities do for disabled people- we’re not all Paralympians but I’d like a vision for disabled people to pull them forward.’

‘We’re working on an initiative in Bristol – we have co produced with disabled people a socially just community climate action plan. One of the reasons we got involved as a partner is that the only major money going to councils is about climate change, and that work especially, with covid, was going to involve a lot around changing built environment and housing. It is essential to have disabled people involved from the start so that mistakes wouldn’t have to be rectified afterwards when there was no more money left. One of the ideas that we came up with was that all large projects and medium projects, streets and cities, there should be a reference group of disabled people with a range of impairments who should be involved with design and planning through to post-completion. So that designs are correct to start with so that all changes are made with disabled people and don’t undermine the accessibility in the original design. This has been asked for by disabled people in our area, but I think it’s the best way to make the most of the money that goes to local authorities to ensure it is a socially just development.’

‘Maybe we need to look at the equalities act, it would put the emphasis on councils and local authorities act to act proactively from the start. There may be other parts to this as well beyond the remit of councils. Private rented accommodation for example, many landlords and estate agents don’t want benefits, some of the landlords could look at a disabled person and assume they’re on benefits and won’t give them the lease. We’ve seen this happen before. It’s not just disabled people, it could be people with a disabled child. Maybe the equality act needs tightening up on areas like that.’

‘I just wanted to raise the issues disabled leaseholders are facing in high rise flats- it’s an ongoing concern. Also to mention that the contract given under the new fire safety guidance was given to a company called CS Todd Associates and they were the people who led on the pre-Grenfell guidance which appeared to abdicate the responsibility of landlords for the safe evacuation of disabled people. Some disabled people are facing appalling battles with landlords and costings over fire safety. This is something that really needs looking at closely.’

‘Deaf people are having exactly the same problems. They will be refused accommodation by landlords because they are deemed a health and safety risk. All the need to do is, as a landlord, fit a flashing as well as sound alarms. It is basic, but it is used as an excuse to refuse housing deaf people.’

‘ I think it should be a policy in law that disabled people should be instrumental in forming future policies regarding housing and transport etc. DPOs are of great value in formulating plans to make sure that policies are achieved to high standard. I would like to see this incorporated in future policy.’