How to use this Toolkit

This toolkit is intended to guide you through the accessibility planning process. It is produced by withinreach, the Accessibility Planning Training and Advice Programme, to support the development of Accessibility Strategies and covers many of the key skills needed to undertake accessibility planning.

It will help you to:

• Understand accessibility planning

• Create effective partnerships with service sector* providers and communities

• Identify shared problems and develop shared solutions

• Understand and develop the analytical techniques that will help you define problem statements, identify solutions and make decisions

• Identify appropriate measures and indicators and how to employ them to show your progress in tackling and resolving problems

The final chapter applies these skills to the five-stage accessibility planning process as it appears in Guidance on Accessibility Planning in Local Transport Plans (DfT, 2004), issued by the Department for Transport (DfT). Further advice and information and practical applications of some of the principles in the toolkit appear in a separate set of resources. These and other case studies and examples of best practice can be found on the withinreach website www.within reach.org.uk.

* In this toolkit the ‘service sector’ does not refer to transport services but to services such as health, education, employment services and food shops. These may be provided by the public, voluntary or private sectors.

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