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 | You and Yours - Transcript ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Radio 4 |
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| TX: 23.12.04 – THOUSANDS MORE WHEELCHAIR ACCESSIBLE HOMES NEEDED SAY CAMPAIGNERS PRESENTER: LIZ BARCLAY |
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| THE ATTACHED TRANSCRIPT WAS TYPED FROM A RECORDING AND NOT COPIED FROM AN ORIGINAL SCRIPT. BECAUSE OF THE RISK OF MISHEARING AND THE DIFFICULTY IN SOME CASES OF IDENTIFYING INDIVIDUAL SPEAKERS, THE ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ CANNOT VOUCH FOR ITS COMPLETE ACCURACY. BARCLAY Three hundred thousand more wheelchair accessible homes are needed in the UK, according to a report by the John Groom's Housing Association. If you have a mobility impairment finding a home that suits you can be a big problem. But some help is at hand with a new website, run by Christine Barton and Conrad Hodgkinson. Anyone with accessible property can advertise for free, whether they're individuals, estate agents, councils or housing associations. Christine is a wheelchair user and she explained why she and her partner felt the need to set it up. BARTON I wondered what on earth would happen if I wanted to move. I have very sophisticated adaptations, they've cost me a lot of money but suppose I want to live somewhere else, what would happen to my home and would I ever find something that worked for me? So this is the bedroom, we've added the on suite shower room, with a tracking hoist over the bed, that enables my wheelchair to be brought next to the bed, the hoist then lifts me up, moves along, deposits me neatly on the bed. My partner did some research and we found out that estate agents know nothing about access. HODGKINSON I think it's particularly encouraging to see, although it maybe small, that there is a bit of interest from estate agents at this early stage because they're the people who handle most property sales and if we can persuade them that they can actually increase their business by providing this information then I think what we're doing can make a real difference. BARTON We used to have three steps, no way can you get a wheelchair up three steps. So now we have a hydraulic platform that takes me up those three steps. HODGKINSON One of the things that we've come to recognise generally is that people who have spent a lot of time and effort on adapting their homes and probably a lot of money as well, have a real emotional attachment. They say quite specifically that they would really like their property to go to somebody who can make use of the access features and adaptations. And prior to something like this it was pretty well impossible. BARCLAY Conrad and Christine who run the website - accessible-property.org.uk. The National Disabled Persons Housing Service and Habinteg Housing Association say that the shortage of accessible housing is made worse by local authorities' severe lack of data. Mark Baggley is disability housing coordinator for Habinteg, which specialises in providing accessible accommodation. BAGGLEY The vast majority of local authorities do not have detailed records of what accessible property they have or what disabled people require in that property. And that means that people are waiting a long, long time to get a suitable property to live in. I know cases where the local authority's been unable to find a disabled person for an adapted property and have then ripped out the adaptations that are already there. This is an incredible waste of money and all it means is that the disabled person will be waiting longer and longer to find a suitable property to live in. We would like all local authorities to establish disabled housing registers, this would enable them to match up accessible property to disabled people. BARCLAY Mark Baggley from Habinteg Housing Association. Ruth Bagnall is chair of the housing executive at the Local Government Association. Ruth, why don't local authorities know how many accessible properties they have and how many people in their areas need them? BAGNALL Well I think it's true to say that across the board the Local Government Association doesn't have a comprehensive understanding of all the properties in other local authorities but as time goes on, particularly now I think with the imperative we're under, under decent homes, local authorities are knowing more and more about the properties that they manage themselves but also more and more about the properties that are owned and managed by housing associations as well, that are in the private sector as well. So it's a complicated picture but I think we're under some pressure, and rightly so as local authorities, to know our properties and to be able to match, as quickly as possible, when a vacant property becomes available, which matches the needs of a particular disabled family or disabled person. BARCLAY Bill Randall, writer and journalist, joins us, Bill has written a report on accessible housing initiatives across the EU. Bill, is the situation the same across the EU? RANDALL Yes very much so. There is no clear picture in any of the 12 EU countries I visited of how many disabled people there are needing housing and how much housing there is to meet their needs. BARCLAY Are there examples of good practice though? RANDALL There are examples of good practice in Britain. There's a web based site directory in Reading which has been set up by the council, local housing associations, the primary care trust and local landlords, private sector landlords, which is attempting to do this. And Strathclyde launched a similar scheme about two years ago. BARCLAY Well to come back to the issue about whether there are enough houses - accessible houses, what about this estimate of another 300,000 required? RANDALL That's the estimate for Britain yes. BARCLAY And what about the rest of Europe, again are we …? RANDALL Again pretty much the same yes. BARCLAY Ruth Bagnall what therefore are local authorities planning to do to provide those extra properties? BAGNALL Well two things shall I say first of all - it comes, I think, this information and this kind of boost to local authorities to really grasp this issue at quite a good time because we're just on the verge of undertaking some serious house building in the growth areas, particularly in the southern parts of England and the proportion of those properties which are let through local authorities or through housing associations can be increased I think and so the overall number of properties which are suitable, over the next 10, 15 years, I think will go up in proportion and I hope we'll begin to make inroads into that deficit that we've got at the moment. BARCLAY Sorry Bill Randall you would like the Government to insist though that all new housing conforms to lifetime home standards - what do you mean by that and why do you think it's important that all new homes should comply? RANDALL Well the lifetime home standard, which is being championed particularly by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, is applied to all new housing, it has 16 points in it which makes the housing flexible enough to meet the needs of most disabled people or all people as they go through life, your circumstances change, a lot of people I met when I was doing my report had been ambushed by disability in middle age for instance, if they were living in a lifetime home they can stay in the same home. There were small but important examples in the design - if there's a downstairs loo, which there is in public housing, you put a drain in the floor when you build it, which might cost you 200 quid, if somebody who lives in that house then becomes disabled you can put a shower in the loo, if they're living downstairs, if they can't manage the stairs. If you do that later of course it might cost you £2,000. And the estimate is that designing to lifetime homes adds about one per cent to building costs. Now some local authorities already insist on it, my own local authority - Brighton Hove does and the Mayor of London is campaigning for it to be adopted in all new building in London, it's mandatory in Holland for public and private building. BARCLAY Bill Randall and Ruth Bagnall thank you very much. And if you'd like more information on that webiste that we mentioned earlier on then please do give us a call. 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