University of Leeds
The University of Leeds appointed us to carry out an access audit of its entire estate in 2016 as part of the university’s Masterplan, a £520m project to transform its City Centre campus and a selection of buildings including farms out of town.
Our audit included the approaches to buildings, entrances, all circulation and public / student areas, teaching spaces, science laboratories, the medical school, a sports centre and farms. Many of these buildings are also of historic importance.
For a project of this size, we appointed and managed a team of five consultants, all of whom are on the National Register of Access Consultants (NRAC).
Our site visits and work had to take place during the quieter, two-month summer holiday at the university. We carried out our audits and produced the reports within a short timescale while not sacrificing the quality of our work; another NRAC-approved consultant reviewed the reports for consistency of language and style, before we returned them to the client.
Throughout this project, we focussed on identifying and addressing the most reasonable adjustments, as outlined by the ‘reasonableness’ definition in the Equality Act 2010. This allowed us to focus solely on the more ‘justifiable’ work that needed to be done, eliminating work that would be less cost-effective or efficient in terms of the anticipated benefits for disabled people.
