DfT Guidance on Accessibility Planning
With successive revisions to the UK Department for Transport’s website over the last 20 years, the 2004 Accessibility Planning guidance can be increasingly hard to find. DfT and the Central Local Working Group on Accessibility Planning (CLWGAP) led the work to develop the guidance and were supported by many hundreds of people across local government and consultancy. DHC and the University of Westminster led the overarching consultancy commission to develop Accessibility Planning approaches and support the development of the guidance.
To ensure this published work continues to be easily accessible we have republished it here. In addition to the Department for Transport Guidance for transport authorities, other Government Departments with a key stake in accessibility planning also published their own guidance.
- The Guidance on Accessibility Planning within Local Transport Plans – The introduction explains that Accessibility Planning was formally launched in 2002 with the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister setting out a cross-Government strategy for improving access to jobs and essential public services in the publication Making the Connections. The Department for Transport’s guidance for Local Transport Plans published in 2004 provides advice on the principles and approaches that can guide local transport authorities when undertaking their accessibility planning, helping to inform the development and delivery of accessibility strategies and plans.
- Summary of the Guidance on Accessibility within Local Transport Plans
- Guidance from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister for Local Planning Authorities on Accessibility Planning
- Guidance for the Job Centre Plus Network
- Department for Health Accessibility Planning Guidance
- Department for Education and Skills Accessibility Planning Guidance
- Department for Culture Media and Sport Accessibility Planning Guidance
DfT recognised that the cross sector accessibility planning practices introduced in 2004 were new to the transport sector, so detailed technical guidance published in 2004 includes with many examples of good practice at that time.
- The Technical Guidance – This guidance explains that a range of factors impact upon accessibility including: travel time; cost of travel; location of facilities and services; method and timing of service delivery; safe routes of travel; fear of crime; knowledge of available travel and service choices; travel horizons; and characteristics, and needs and perceptions of the individual. Accessibility indicators are used to quantify accessibility and assess the ease with which a given population, population segment or community can access one or more services from a residential or other location using one or more modes of transport.
- Research on the Development and Piloting of Accessibility Planning Approaches that informed all of the above guidance
- Deterrence Parameters for Use in Calculating Accessibility Indicators
As Accessibility Planning practices have developed since 2004 many new guidance documents have been published, and analysis technologies have improved. However, the comprehensive coverage of the 2004 guidance remains a useful checklist for anyone involved in Accessibility Planning.