Improved access

We are committed to making Exhibition Road the most accessible cultural destination in the world. The Council established a dedicated ‘Access Group’ in 2004, including representatives from across different disability groups, to consult on each stage of the design. 

More recently, Councillor Andrew Lamont was appointed as the Council’s ‘Access Champion’ for the Exhibition Road project.
The Councillor is engaging with a wide range of disability groups and professionals designing the project to ensure that the Council delivers on its promise to develop a design that will reconcile the needs of different disability groups and create an exciting new space that is safe and accessible for everyone to enjoy.  

Features to improve access include:

• A single surface to pave the length of Exhibition Road
• Removal of kerbs to make it easier to move around for wheelchair users, those with pushchairs, motorised scooters, elderly people and partially sighted people
• Logical, simple road layout including the removal of barriers and street clutter that create unnecessary obstacles
• Black drainage channel covers four metres out from the building line on each side of Exhibition Road, to provide a clear signal to young children and partially sighted people that these sections of Exhibition Road are ‘safe areas’
• Wide strips of ‘corduroy’ warning tactile – ridged paving used to warn blind and partially sighted people of a hazard and to proceed with caution – alongside the drainage channel cover, to alert blind people to the edge of the ‘safe area’
• Wide, direct controlled pedestrian crossings
• Increased ‘blue badge’ parking on Exhibition Road

The Council will carry out a further safety audit, following the latest amendments to the Exhibition Road design and will report the results later in 2009. We are also involved in research, funded by Transport for London, into the delineation of space in single surface streetscape improvement schemes, as part of our continued commitment to safety and accessibility. This programme of work will move on from the identification of the effectiveness of tactile delineators in laboratory conditions, to monitoring their effectiveness in real life settings such as Exhibition Road.  

We are working with Imperial College to monitor the existing use of Exhibition Road and will continue to monitor road usage for up to two years after the scheme is implemented to assess the safety of the road.

Click map to enlarge