Bar regulator calls on London planners to relax listed building rules so access for people with disabilities to chambers can be improved

The Bar Standards Board has urged London borough planners to relax rules on listed buildings to allow for adaptations that would help barristers and other individuals with disabilities to access chambers.

The board last December launched a Disability Task Force and BSB director general Mark Neale said it was clear from discussions there “that a challenge for both the Inns and Chambers in making reasonable adjustments to historic buildings lies in achieving planning consent”.

In a letter to the chief planning officers of the London boroughs of Westminster and Camden and the City of London Corporation, Neale said: “Many barristers’ chambers operate and practice from historic buildings which the profession has occupied for centuries. Many of these buildings are owned by the Inns of Court.

“The Bar Standards Board, as the regulator of the profession, respects these historic associations, but is also concerned about the lack of disability access to and within these buildings and the challenges these institutions and organisations often face when applying for planning permission to make these buildings accessible.”

He said that access barriers present in these buildings were “significant and contrary to equality and human dignity”.

The board was in the process of revising its Equality Rules to include expectations governing dignity and access for those who are disabled but was “concerned that chambers may find it challenging to comply with our prospective rules and meet these expectations whilst operating from within some of these listed buildings unless planning permission is granted to make the necessary changes, for example building ‘sesame steps’ or lifts to the outer structures of buildings.

Mr Neale asked to meet planners to better understand how to balance accessibility and the need to protect listed buildings.

Mark Smulian