The UK faces numerous key current and future challenges in housing accessibility standards and design inclusivity. With a larger ageing population, it’s time to rethink how we design our housing stock that too often struggles to accommodate even basic accessibility demands.
The Office of National Statistics predicts that the number of people aged 85 and over will virtually double by 2043 to over 3 million, while NHS data demonstrates that there are around 1.2 million wheelchair users in the UK, with the majority of them being over 60, two thirds of whom are regular users. Nearly one person in five (14.1 million) is living with some form of disability, according to the National Disability Strategy, published in 2021.
The growing need for accessibility in our housing stock suggests that there is a real need to fundamentally rethink how all dwellings are designed.
“Accessibility For Everyone” points to a new ‘lifelong’ philosophy.
Dwellings should arguably be created with built-in accessibility features for all age groups in mind. Indeed, many features that help the disabled, if designed into all homes, would create better safety for all children, adults and senior citizens.
Retrofitting can be an expensive solution, whereas the provision of accessible features in all new homes not only makes them safer, but also gives developers an advantage in offering buildings that can successfully accommodate accessibility needs for the lifetime of occupants – a home for life, through youth to retirement.
Following government initiatives to directly meet accessibility needs, the three categories within Approved Document Part M set out minimum standards for different types of dwelling:
M4(1) Category 1: Visitable dwellings: This is the minimum requirement for all new dwellings in England, ensuring a basic level of access, enabling most people, including wheelchair users to enter and use main living spaces and a toilet at entrance level.
M4(2) Category 2: Accessible and adaptable dwellings: Usually triggered by planning permission, this category aims for a greater level of accessibility, making the dwelling suitable for a wider occupant scope, including older people and those with reduced mobility and some wheelchair users.
M4(3) Category 3: Wheelchair user dwellings: Ensures that a dwelling is fully accessible and usable for a wheelchair user, including outdoor spaces, parking and communal facilities.
M4(2) and M4(3) are both optional standards and inconsistent local authority policies result in varying implementation. Furthermore, cost constraints often mean that accessibility can be deprioritised in affordable housing schemes.
There has consequently been some criticism of Approved Document Part M in terms of the minimum standards it sets out, falling short of providing adequate inclusivity, particularly in the private housing sector. Actual enforcement can sometimes be hit and miss, depending on individual local authority and planning policies.
Marketing and communication are also frequent problem areas. Accessible homes, and their features, are often arguably underpromoted and many developers still consider accessible housing to be a niche sector, often failing to provide inclusive features, unless specifically required to. This further serves to marginalise adoption of universally accessible and inclusive design principles and does little to encourage innovative design that properly integrates accessibility features in an aesthetically pleasing way, leading to frequent accusations of them appearing ‘clinical’ and ‘unattractive’.
While new home construction initiatives in this arena are commendable and to be encouraged, there is still an underlying limited capability to address the retrofitting of accessible and inclusive features in older properties.
To make matters worse, much of the UK’s housing stock was constructed before the introduction of accessibility standards. This can also lead to a lack of adaptability to accommodate accessible and inclusive features, to say nothing of the often high costs of retrofit.
These issues are generally only amplified within the private rental sector, where lack of enforcement arguably encourages landlords to avoid making appropriate accessibility upgrades.
And while the Disability Facilities Grant offers a funding path for the disabled to make appropriate adaptations to their homes, the upper limit for claims hasn’t been raised since 2008, during which time inflation has led to rising costs, placing what many consider to be an inadequate glass ceiling on improvements, too often leading to total abandonment of plans.
Perhaps the above shortcomings, largely arising from outdated infrastructure, policy gaps and a lack of investment, can best be summarised as a broad failure to address a truly holistic and comprehensive approach to the problem.
Against this often counterproductive backcloth, Kawneer has introduced the KWD 92 UT+ Accessibility Window, an all-in-one solution, providing a truly wheelchair accessible window.
It is a high-performance and sustainable aluminium accessibility window that meets current and likely future requirements for energy efficient and inclusive window design, supporting accessible, safe and adaptable residential, healthcare and education buildings.
With Approved Document Part M and Part K compliance and conforming to the Future Homes Standard, aimed at improving energy efficiency in reducing carbon emissions in new and renovated homes, it offers the same thermal performance and Passive House certified accreditation as the original KWD 92 UT+ window.
Crucially, the KWD 92 UT+ Accessibility Window also facilitates easy and affordable installation in retrofit settings, making a potentially valuable contribution to providing a superior window for accessible housing in existing homes.
At Kawneer, we strongly believe that this window genuinely provides ‘lifelong’ benefits. Restricted opening also has obvious benefits for the safety of children, as do user-friendly handles. These advantages can obviously also become more relevant as occupants age.
If designed into new dwellings, the Accessibility Window can make a valuable contribution to the ‘lifelong’ philosophy. Truly accessibility for everyone.
The KWD92 UT+ Accessibility Window is the latest innovation in Kawneer’s range of windows and doors, delivering added value in buildings that utilise aluminium as a primary material for construction.
This approach to housing design yields a wide range of key accessibility/inclusivity and sustainable advantages:
Click here to find out more about Aluminium Building and Construction
There are essentially two contrasting approaches to accessible and inclusive design:
Legislation Driven – waiting for legislation to be tightened even further, so there is no option but to incorporate accessibility/inclusivity features as standard.
Proactively Driven – taking the view that accessibility/inclusivity features shouldn’t be discretionary and instead incorporating them into all designs, irrespective of legislative requirements.
Architects/principal designers who take the proactive ‘lifelong’ route not only gain the satisfaction of making life easier and more comfortable for occupants. They also arguably give their clients a key marketing advantage in providing built-in accessibility/inclusivity – something occupants are likely to value more highly in future, as the population lives longer and the need for these vital features becomes more of a minimum expectation than a pleasant surprise.
Furthermore, there are key sustainability outcomes to be gained from this approach, providing a highly specified building that is ready, from the outset, to satisfy likely carbon emission requirements long into the future.
At Kawneer, we view the KWD92 UT+ Accessibility Window as being another key step in this process. Contact Kawneer’s Architectural Advisor Team if you’d like to discuss its potential integration into your next project in more detail.