Access All Areas?

Last year saw the enactment of the Disability Discrimination Act, deeply flawed legislation whose stated aim is to eliminate 'unjustified discrimination' against people on the grounds of disability. What effect this will have on sites or buildings of historic interest is as yet unclear, though the Act has raised some important points for those concerned with visiting and managing historic properties.

The Act makes clear that the present system of listing buildings, and the procedures to gain consent to make alterations to them will remain. For the purpose of this discussion, it is necessary to distinguish between buildings which are listed in order that people might visit them and look at them (on which I shall focus here), and the more difficult problem of buildings which have been listed with the intention that they remain in use.

The scope and nature of historic sites is bewildering. On the one hand there are very extensive buildings such as Hampton Court Palace, and on the other, many modest structures such as Anne Hathaway's cottage. Then there arc the non-building sites: everything from hill forts and ruins, to preserved railways.