A valuable service provided by Disability Watford is the conduct of Access Audits.
This service is designed to assess aspects of a service provider’s premises including the services delivered for the purpose of accessibility (user friendliness) to persons with disabilities. We will prepare a final audit report following completion of the audit.
You can find at the following link an example of a final audit report, produced from our Access Audit undertaken in 2022 on Radlett High Street, at the request of Aldenham Parish Council: Radlett High Street – Disability Watford Access Audit (June 2022).
See below for further information about what the audit process involves.
If you would like Disability Watford to conduct an Access Audit, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
What an Access Audit involves
The Audit will commence with a review of the public facing Website to assess how user friendly and accessible it is.
Next we visit premises where the service is based and delivered. The availability of accessible transport public/private to the venue including parking facilities at or near the site will be assessed.
The exterior of the building near entry/exit points including the route to thereof will be reviewed. At this stage factors such as lighting, signage and doorways etc. will be inspected.
Next focusing on interior of the building, In addition to checks similar to the exterior, facilities/features such as disabled toilet, awareness of staff on disability, availability of alternative formats of all printed information, colour contrast, flooring, etc. will be assessed.
Specialist tools are utilised to measure different items ranging from the effort needed to open doors, luminosity of interior/exterior spaces through to the gradient of ramps/slopes.
Our Auditors work to the British Standard BS8300 (this runs to over 700 pages). Understandably the example mentioned above does not form an exhaustive list of the checks to be carried out.
After the Audit is complete, a final report will be produced.
This will note all aspects where compliance exists and reports on issues that are non-compliant. The latter will take the form of recommendations for improvements together with suggested timescales for completion.