Essential principles, Creating an accessible and inclusive environment

The Construction Industry Council (CIC) was established in 1988 to provide ‘…a single voice for professionals in all sectors of the built environment’. It is a forum for professional bodies, research organisations and specialist business associations in the construction industry.

On 9 March 2017, CIC launched: Essential principles, Creating an accessible and inclusive environment. The guide emerged from the Built Environment Professional Education Project, a government project now being taken forward by CIC. It was sponsored by Gardiner & Theobald.

The aim is to build on the legacy of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games by helping change how inclusive design skills are taught in the UK.

The guide includes six principles to underpin decisions by clients, employers and the wider society which can help create an inclusive environment. The principles were first suggested by the Office for Disability Issues in the Built Environment Professional Education Project Report of Progress published in March 2016:

• Contribute to building an inclusive society now and in the future.
• Apply professional and responsible judgement and take a leadership role.
• Apply and integrate the principles of inclusive design from the outset of a project.
• Do more than just comply with legislation and codes.
• Seek multiple views to solve accessibility and inclusivity challenges.
• Acquire the skills, knowledge, understanding and confidence to make inclusion the norm not the exception.

The guide suggests that:

The report recommends that all built environment professionals, institutions and related bodies adopt and subscribe to these essential principles for achieving an inclusive environment:

BEPE Project Board Chair Paul Morrell suggested that the industry should: “…always have in its mind the whole idea of accessibility: of welcoming the greatest possible number of people, in all the many guises we come in, into our buildings and our businesses, and designing into both whatever accommodations may be necessary to make them feel at home. To do that, all we have to do is first to care; then to know what to do; and then just do it..’’

Tony Burton, partner of Gardiner & Theobald said: “By embracing these six principles for achieving an inclusive environment the construction and property industry can achieve the same impressive levels of accessibility we saw in London 2012.”

[edit] Find out more

[edit] Related articles on Designing Buildings Wiki

• Accessibility in the built environment
• Access and inclusion in the built environment: policy and guidance.
• Access audit.
• Access consultant.
• Approved Document M.
• BIFM standard Managing Accessibility and Inclusion.
• Built Environment Professional Education BEPE.
• Changing lifestyles.
• Construction Industry Council.
• Disability Discrimination Act DDA.
• Equality Act.
• Equal opportunities policy.
• Inclusive design.
• Lifetime homes.
• Lifetime neighbourhoods.
• People with disabilities.