I find myself on Brentwood High Street several times a week for shopping trips and meetings for work and would say I am reasonably familiar with its layout. Last week I took up a challenge from the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association to walk up the High Street blindfolded aided by a long white stick (and the helpful arm of Orientation and Mobility Specialist, Gill Jones) to stop me from tripping over bollards and fellow shoppers.
The stick, swung in wide arcs, alerted me to tactile paving near the pelican crossings, benches and litter bins. For five minutes or so I was quietly impressed by my own ability to navigate the street. Then in working my way around what turned out to be a small advertising hoarding chained to a lamp-post, I became disoriented and lost. Soon after I walked into a car - fortunately parked; had it not been there I would have walked blithely out into the road.
Guide Dog Association Community Engagement Officer, Siobhan Meade, and her support worker, Rasna, had followed me along the street, wincing at my more dangerous forays into the paths of people and traffic. Siobhan has been visually impaired all her life and relies on her white stick to get around. She pointed out that when you’re unable to see, the shared space design of the High Street, with its lack of kerbs, can make navigation somewhat dangerous for the visually impaired.
With a couple of exceptions, Brentwood High Street meets the current guidance laid out by central Government. But Gill and Siobhan feel the guidance on the built environment for people with sight loss needs to be updated to address a small, but important number of issues.
The Government is determined to make it easier for disabled people to get around the country and has published strategy to create a transport system offering equal access for people with disabilities by 2030. This includes working with local authorities to improve physical infrastructure, such as streets, so they are designed, built and operated so that they are easy to use for everyone. However, the issues highlighted to me during my blindfold walk in Brentwood are something I will be taking up with Ministers to help improve the safety of sight impaired residents and visitors to Brentwood.