Guide Dogs alarm at Market Place shared surface design award

Charity describes scheme as inaccessible for blind and partially sighted people

Guide Dogs has expressed surprise at the announcement of a national design award being given to the £2.2 million development of Kettering’s Market Place - because the charity considers the design to be inaccessible for blind and partially sighted people.

The Market Place development won the Local Government News Street Design Competition’s pedestrian environment category yet Guide Dogs, Northamptonshire Association for the Blind (NAB) and the Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB) all jointly assessed that the Market Place site is potentially inaccessible for blind and partially sighted people and includes very real risks of causing serious trips or falls and injury within its design.

Leamington Guide Dogs District Team Manager, Graham Kensett said: “Market Place is a shared surfaces design will be very difficult for blind and partially sighted people to navigate. The area also has a number of other features - tapering ramps, irregular step heights and associated seating and a recesses water feature - which could be hazardous to people with low vision.

“Added to that, pedestrians and vehicles are expected to “share” the access road to the church car park. There is very little space and a real risk that in moving aside for vehicles, blind and partially sighted or mobility impaired pedestrians may trip down the steps.  We would strongly recommend that the route is either pedestrianised or designated a vehicular only route - not both.”

Other issues of great concern are:

• The lack of nosings on the steps and/or seats with limited colour contrast and width
• No handrails along the steps to act as a barrier for blind and partially sighted people and support for people with mobility impairment.
• The inconsistent layout of street furniture
• Planters with sharp edges which also pose as obstacles
• Insufficient contrasting features in the general design to assist with orientation and navigation.
• The anti-skating stainless steel staples which could be slippery and reflective on bright days

Guide Dogs, NAB, and RNIB feel that it is vital that the local authority maintains an ongoing consultation with those organisations and with local blind and partially sighted residents from the Kettering area if the redevelopment of the town centre is to be accessible to everyone who needs to use it. The organisations have already made a number of recommendations to Kettering Borough Council in relation to the redevelopment of Market Street and Sheep Street and they are urging the Council to act on those.