Disability Discrimination Act - have you made the necessary alterations?

A recent case regarding provision of access to premises shows that the steps required by service providers to ensure access for disabled people can be extensive and expensive. Are you prepared?

Where the design or construction of premises or access to them includes a physical feature which makes it impossible or unreasonably difficult for use by disabled people, the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA) requires that the 'service provider' has a duty to take reasonable steps to remove or alter the impediment, or provide reasonable means for avoiding it or for otherwise providing the services to disabled persons.

By an injunction made this year, Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc was required to carry out circa £200,000 of works to install a wheelchair lift for a disabled customer at a high street branch. The bank's arguments as to loss of workspace, that the customer should use a different branch and that the bank staff could deal with the customer on the street instead were not accepted by the court. The key point is that the reasonable steps to be undertaken by the bank as a service provider extended to provision of the approximate standard of access enjoyed by the public at large, rather than the more limited basis of providing 'some access' to disabled people. In short, depending on the premises the required alterations could be extensive and expensive.