Direct Access delivering access in Trafford Town Centres
Direct Access is delivering public realm programmes for Trafford Council, identifying ways of improving access in Altrincham, Sale, Stretford, and Urmston centres.
Accessibility: Retail’s Last and Largest Untapped Growth Lever
Accessibility problems in retail parks are not accidental; they are a byproduct of the original commercial logic behind retail park design, and increasingly, they are becoming a major drag on footfall, dwell time, and long-term profitability, Large retail parks were originally designed around a simple commercial model: high-volume visits on low-cost suburban land, accessed primarily […]
The Hidden Value of Accessibility Policy That Businesses Ignore
Most accessibility policies aren’t worth the PDF they’re saved in. That sounds harsh. It isn’t. A policy that nobody implements is a policy in name only, and the gap between what an organisation says and what it actually does is where the trouble lives. Customers notice. Regulators notice. The press notices, eventually and loudly. A […]
The £17 Billion Opportunity Hidden in Website Accessibility
Most websites don’t work for one in five of their users. Most businesses don’t know it. Most agencies don’t tell them. That’s not an indictment of disabled users. It’s a description of an industry that has, for years, treated accessibility as someone else’s problem. The cost of that quiet decision sits at £17.1 billion in […]
Southampton City Council Museums – Access Audits & Policy Review
Direct Access delivered comprehensive accessibility audits and policy reviews that identified and addressed accessibility barriers across physical and digital environments for three Southampton City Council-owned and operated museums, ensuring that all visitors, regardless of their abilities, could fully engage with the collections and spaces. Our auditors also conducted a policy review to embed a long-term […]
Why Inaccessibility Is Costing You Deaf Customers
Most businesses don’t lose Deaf and hard-of-hearing customers in a single, visible moment. They lose them quietly, at various junctions of the visitor journey. Whether it’s inaccessible marketing, broken checkout flows, or ineffective customer support, the outcome is the same: frustration. And that frustration shows up in the metrics businesses already track. Lower conversions. Weaker sales performance. Higher churn. The challenge […]
How Accessibility Prevents Micro-Apartments From Shrinking Further
Micro-apartments have a floor they cannot go below, and that floor is set by accessibility standards. This is not a constraint to resist. It is the reason housing remains habitable for the population that actually exists. Micro-apartments are like the fast food of the housing market. In certain situations they can be convenient, sometimes necessary, but normalising them as a […]