How accessible are camdens community centres

Disabled volunteers from Healthwatch Camden and Camden Disability Action visited 28 community centres in Camden, to check how accessible they are to a range of people with disabilities. They did this because Camden Council’s strategy for disabled and older people says it will “use community resources first” when developing solutions to peoples’ support needs. This includes “tackling barriers to accessing community facilities”.

They wanted to find out how realistic it would be for someone with a disability to use the local community centres and to share this information with Camden council and local disabled people. They found that most of the centres have reasonable wheelchair access and there were some excellent examples of good overall access. However, few centres have good access for deaf residents and most make no specific provision for people with learning disability. Staff in general were helpful and welcoming, however only a minority of staff have had disability equality training, or knew where the nearest parking spaces are or how to help guide dog users. Most centres did not include access information on their websites, and most did not routinely provide information in accessible formats such as big print or easy-read, although most would do so on request.

They made a number of recommendations for improvement at centres, some ‘quick wins’ which could be easily implemented and some longer term goals, which would require additional funds and/or building alterations. Centres responded, mainly very positively. Some are implementing the quick wins and some have asked for support to achieve the longer term goals. They know that many centres are in ageing buildings, and that funding is a challenge for most. They hope the report helps to make a case for investment. The joint enterprise between 17 community centres, C4 has responded to this report, their response is included as an appendix.

They made 7 general recommendations for the community sector; 7 recommendations to the council and 1 recommendation jointly to the council and Camden Clinical Commissioning Group.