Guide Dogs’ manifesto for the 2025 local elections in England

Guide Dogs’ ambition is a future where every person with sight loss can live the life they choose. From designing accessible streets to taking a stand against illegal guide dog access refusals, local councils have a key role to play in realising this ambition.

Achieving our vision, where people with sight loss can live their life to the full, will not just benefit people with a vision impairment, but everyone in the community.

Using our local election manifesto, all candidates and councillors can make a positive difference for people living with sight loss in their area.

1. Make the built environment inclusive

Being able to get out and about independently is something most people take for granted. However, a quarter of people with sight loss do not feel able to go out independently, due to the obstacles and challenges they face on our streets and other public spaces. 

Local authorities play a critical role in ensuring our public spaces are accessible for everyone, including disabled and older people. 

Research by UCL and Guide Dogs investigated the challenges for disabled people travelling in areas with features such as Floating Island Bus Stops and Shared Bus Stop Borders. The research found significant design flaws with both types of bus stop, which cause fear and distress for people with sight loss and other disabilities, leading some to avoid using buses altogether.

Local authorities, as stewards of our public spaces, must make every effort to ensure our streets are accessible, so people with sight loss can navigate public spaces confidently and independently.

We are calling on candidates, if elected, to make sure their local authority:

• Conducts an audit of their local area to establish how accessible street environments are for people with sight loss.
• Consults with a wide range of disability organisations and disabled people, including people with sight loss, when making changes to the built environment.
• Follows guidance from disability organisations on creating accessible public spaces, transport hubs and buildings. For example, Guide Dogs’ guidance ‘Making the built environment inclusive’.
• Pauses the roll out of floating island bus stops and shared bus stop borders until further research demonstrates how they can be made safe for disabled people.

2. Stopping illegal access refusals

The Equality Act makes it illegal for the vast majority of businesses and other service providers to refuse access to a guide or other assistance dog owner. For taxi and Private Hire Vehicle (PHV) drivers, access refusals are a criminal offence, unless the driver has a valid medical exemption certificate.

Nevertheless, refusals remain a regular part of guide dog ownership.

Access refusals have a significant impact on guide dog owners. Not only can it lead to situations where people are unable to get home or to work, but it can have a crushing impact on someone’s confidence to travel independently.

Many local authorities are responsible for regulating taxis and PHVs in their area, including setting policies on issuing licences and when enforcement action is taken. The stance taken against such discrimination by local authorities varies greatly, which can have a direct impact on the likelihood of a guide dog owner experiencing an illegal access refusal.

We are calling on candidates, if elected, to make sure their local authority:

• Commits to all taxi and PHV drivers undertaking disability equality training as a requirement for being issued a licence.
• Ensures disability and equality training is delivered by disabled people, where possible.
• Adopts a zero-tolerance approach to any reports of taxi and PHV drivers refusing access to assistance dog owners.
• Works with local businesses, and other service providers, to raise awareness of the rights of assistance dog owners.

3. Children and Young People

Ensuring children and young people with a vision impairment receive the support they need, as early as possible and for as long as needed, is crucial to their long-term development and opportunities in later life.

However, local authority budgets for children’s services are stretched, with 39% of local authorities in England cutting or freezing their vision impairment education service budgets over the last year. This is leading to significant shortages in the availability of specialist support, and a postcode lottery of services for children and young people across the country. 

Alongside this, a lack of awareness in schools about how to effectively support children and young people with a vision impairment is creating a barrier to them fully participating in their education.

The earlier that children and young people can access essential support, and the more comprehensive and tailored this support is at home and in school, the better their experiences will be as an adult and when entering the workforce.

We are calling on candidates, if elected, to make sure their local authority:

• Prioritises the provision of life-changing services for children and young people with sight loss, such as habilitation and support from a Qualified Teacher of Children and Young People with Vision Impairment (QTVI).
• Ensures all schools and educational staff understand their legal obligations around the provision of reasonable adjustments for students with vision impairment, to enable them to fully access the curriculum. This is particularly important when students are transitioning between education settings or when a student with vision impairment moves to a new local authority area.

4. Ending pavement parking

Cars parked on pavements force pedestrians into the road, putting them in danger. This is especially hazardous for people with sight loss as they cannot see cars on the road. 

Local authorities have limited powers to effectively tackle pavement parking. In England (except in London) pavement parking is not a specific offence and is only prohibited in certain circumstances, for example next to dropped kerbs and controlled crossings. Local authorities may prohibit pavement parking in designated areas through Traffic Regulation Orders, but this is an expensive and lengthy process. Outside of these instances, only the police — who are time and resource limited — can take action, where a pavement parked car is deemed to be obstructing the highway.

The law on pavement parking is outdated and needs to change. This is why we’re campaigning for a new, clear law that will make pavement parking the exception, not the norm. Until then, more can be done to tackle problem pavement parking at a local level.

We are calling on candidates, if elected, to:

• Bring forward a motion at a meeting of their full council, requiring their local authority to write to the Secretary of State for Transport, asking them to publish the response to the 2020 Pavement Parking Consultation, and to set out plans to introduce legislation to tackle unsafe and anti-social pavement parking.
• Ensure their local authority’s parking strategy outlines how the authority will use their existing powers to tackle pavement parking.
• Work with local policing teams to identify and tackle pavement parking hotspots.
• Work with their local authority, the police and other organisations to raise awareness of the dangers of pavement parking.

5. Safer shared transport schemes

Whether it’s cycle and cargo bike hire or e-scooter rentals, shared transport schemes can be found across much of the UK. While they can help get people out of cars, these schemes can create new obstacles for people with sight loss.

Many schemes use parking bays on pavements, which often overflow, encroaching on what room is left for pedestrians to get past; others use a free-floating model where riders can pick-up and drop-off their cycle or e-scooter anywhere within the scheme’s area, littering pavements with abandoned e-scooters and bikes.

People with sight loss rely on clear pavements to travel safely and independently but are increasingly being forced to walk in the road to avoid rental cycles and e-scooters blocking pavements.

We are calling on local election candidates, if elected, to ensure their local authority or transport authority:

• Mandates on-street parking bays for all forms of shared transport.
• Prevents rental cycles and e-scooters being used in pedestrian-only areas, including pavements.
• Adopts a coherent and consistent approach to tackling the anti-social use of rental cycles and e-scooters.
• Engages with disability organisations and monitors the impact on pedestrians with disabilities.
• Provides evidence to the Department for Transport on their experiences of e-scooter usage to help inform future legislation.