The Productive Pessimist

Disability inclusion is the art of planning for the future; when you create places and spaces that are inclusive by design, you accommodate the frailties and limitations that can come with ageing, you accommodate the way peoples' needs will change, outside of ageing, over time, as their circumstances and preferences change. Including disability from design, through build, and into completion saves resources, creates significant cost-efficiencies, and creates a consistency in development and provision which can both predict demand trends, and respond to emerging demands. Disability inclusive design isn't just about making entrances wheelchair accessible.   Disability inclusive design is about how a place is built, how space is laid out, how adaptable by individuals it is, how easily and to what degree things can be adjusted to suit individual needs and preferences. So much of the building of places and design of spaces is just an unthinking continuation of "the way we'v...

Less than six months after taking office, Keir Starmer's Labour Party are proving every bit as "nasty" as the "Nasty Party" the Conservatives of the past 14yrs managed to become infamously dubbed; most visibly in their narratives around people who are currently unemployed owing to disability. Now, it is not unreasonable, to most people, to feel that "almost everyone can do something!" - but gainful employment isn't about whether people can  do something; it's about whether employers are happy to let people  "do something", and, more importantly, amenable to paying them a living wage   for  "doing something."   With Rachel Reeves' recent increase in Employer National Insurance contributions , and the persistent shambles that is the process of being able to secure funding for necessary workplace accommodations for disability via Access to Work , which is seeing people waiting up to nine months or more without the means to ...