Disability action

Over the last 3 years the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, led by Tony Pegrum and Alan Haines, have been working closely with Action Disability Kensington & Chelsea to gain a better understanding of the challenges people with disabilities encounter when trying to navigate road and street works. This included joint site visits with utility/contractor representatives.

Following the 3 year project and multiple site visits RBKC and ADKC collated some of the main issues which they considered to be the most important to tackle first, which included restraints in the use/navigation of the current TM and SLG systems.

SQS and UK Power Networks are supporting this project by working with RBKC and suppliers to try and resolve some of these issues.

There have been many similar projects completed over the years, with some fantastic products already available on the market. But one of our main objectives is ‘how do we make companies actually use the products?’.

Unless they are being used as standard equipment the issues haven’t been resolved. We want to introduce equipment into the street works industry that is practicable for our teams to use, commercially sustainable, and ultimately be standard equipment in the future.

Our kick off meeting, summarised by Michael Barratt MBE in this LinkedIn post, is a step in the right direction.

Thank you to Michael for his profound and eye opening presentation. Thank you to Oxford Plastics and Chevron Traffic Management for giving their time to us, with fantastic presentations and demonstrating some incredible equipment.

Thank you to Paul Dooley for supporting this project.