Mayor keen to improve disability access

Posted October 19, 2012 14:07:55

The Mayor of Albany says it is vital the city improves its disability access to ensure the safety of its increasing elderly population.

The City of Albany is due to consider its five-year plan on access and inclusion at this month's council meeting.

The plan outlines ways the city can become more accessible to disabled people, given its aging infrastructure.

Dennis Wellington says a lot of the city's building are not currently accessible to the entire population and that needs to change.

"The visitors' centre, the administration building, the aquatic centre, the library, all of those sorts of things have got to make sure that there's ready access to them," he said.

"We've done a lot of those things in the past but we've got to make sure that there are other areas available in the future.

"If you were in a wheelchair and you wanted to cross, say, York Street, there's only probably one or two places where you can cross on the length of York Street, whereas an able-bodied person would just walk over a kerb, walk across the middle and just go over the other side.

"That's not open to people with a wheelchair."

Topics: urban-development-and-planning, local-government, disabilities, albany-6330