Bath city centre Access and Mobility Consultation, March 2015
We carried out an extensive consultation process among older and disabled people in Bath over March 2015, publicising the consultation over a month in advance via the Council website and using Council contacts to get information out to a range of local disability groups.
We used a number of ways of getting people to outline and express the issues they have getting around Bath city centre, as follows:
- Focus group discussions: we held six sessions, two sessions a day from 9th to 11th March with groups ranging from 2 to 8 people each. Five sessions were held at Bath Council offices in Westgate House and one was held at the Citadel with the Bath Access Group.
- Questionnaire: Sent out a paper and an electronic survey: Bath centre, Access and Mobility survey and received 30 responses
- Telephone conversations: We spoke to at least 15 people over the telephone who could not attend focus group discussions or walkabouts.
- Walkabouts: Went on an accompanied walkabout with a local expert from Deaf Plus Vision Plus
- Filmed walkabouts: We carried out filmed walkabouts of 12 volunteers around the city centre
- Independent walkabouts: We walked areas of the city centre assessing where the infrastructure could better meet the needs of disabled and older people.
Many of those who attended the focus group discussions also filled out the questionnaires so there is some overlap.
The issues brought up in the consultation exercises are outlined below.
Summary of priorities
- The biggest issue for respondents are the quality of pavements/ footways with poor surfacing, steep cambers, narrow widths and high kerbs with no dropped kerbs to get to and from the road.
- The second biggest issue is lack of facilities such as toilets and lack of step-free access to places
- Parking with lack of Blue Badge parking spaces and high parking charges was the third largest grouping of issues.