Climate policy with the Disability Equality Duty?
By Andy Shipley
On 8th October 2024, Bristol City Council passed a resolution to make the city a ‘highly accessible city’. This resolution included a range of measures to improve access to transport and the public realm across the city. The Council tasks Committee Chairs to report on progress in one year and suggests that all projects being brought forward should be co-designed with disabled people whenever possible.
This resolution is clearly a welcome step. But one might wonder why such a resolution is still necessary in 2024? Shouldn’t all cities be highly accessible by now? Hasn’t it been a matter of law for the last 30 years not to discriminate against disabled people? Access for disabled people to infrastructure and the public realm should ideally lie at the heart of the communities that we plan, design and manage, and the policies that govern these activities.
For Bristol to secure this policy by passing a full Council resolution suggests that the City Council felt it necessary to take action over and above that required by existing equality legislation in order to address structural disadvantages experienced by disabled people in the city.
Our ongoing analysis of climate and climate-related policy in England suggests somewhat inconsistent (and, at times, seemingly absent) consideration of the needs and priorities of disabled people across this policy landscape to date.
Linked to this analysis, Sensing Climate researcher, Andy Shipley, has been examining the evolution of disability equality legislation; from the passing of the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) in 1995 to the introduction of the Equality Act and Public Sector Equality Duty in 2010. In our first Sensing Climate Working Paper, Andy explores how the current situation has been allowed to happen, and how different it could have been.
Focusing on the policy areas of housing and transport, and drawing on evidence from disability and civil society organisations, as well as Parliamentary inquiries, this Working Paper shares examples of where the needs and priorities of disabled people have been given limited, if any, consideration.
The Paper goes on to re-imagine how the world might look for disabled people across these policy sectors, had public bodies – at various levels of government – continued to take action to promote equality of opportunity amongst disabled people, in line with the ambitions of the Disability Equality Duty that was introduced when the DDA was amended in 2005.
Download and read the Paper as a word document or a pdf document. We are also very happy to share the Paper in alternative formats if useful (please contact Sarah.Bell@exeter.ac.uk to request this).