More than half of the commercial establishments in Buenavista del Norte are inaccessible, specifically, 54% of the 46 existing ones, and only 11% meet the basic conditions established in the regulations. This follows from a study commissioned by the City Council and prepared by the Chamber of Commerce and Sinpromi in order to assess the current situation and propose improvements.
To reach these conclusions, the technicians took into account different aspects, which ranged from the location of a parking space reserved for people with reduced mobility, the identification of the establishment on public roads, its access (if it has steps, stairs), as well as such as internal movement to the different dependencies, signage and communication that allow a good understanding and orientation to the client and the existence of an accessible toilet. Thus, the 46 establishments of different branches were analyzed, ranging from bars and cafes to clothing and sports stores, supermarkets, pharmacies, hardware stores, bazaars, workshops, butchers, bookstores, beauty centers, service stations, florists and bazaars.
After studying each one of the aspects, an evaluation was carried out, in general terms, in which three types of accessibility were established: inaccessible, which is what 25 of the commercial establishments have; practicable (16) and accessible, only 5.
This result means that only 11% of the businesses analyzed have a high degree of compliance with the parameters of current regulations, while 35% only reach medium compliance, allowing access and use of people with reduced mobility with some restrictions or with the help of other people. The remaining 54% do not meet the basic accessibility conditions, preventing access and use for this group.
In general, it is concluded that the greatest deficiency is in terms of visual, auditory and cognitive accessibility. The first step that the City Council took to solve this situation was to improve the signage and magnetic loops were distributed to those businesses considered essential -food and pharmacy-, to facilitate communication for people with hearing problems, and in that line it will continue working from next year’s budget.
In this first phase, simple and easy-to-implement improvements were carried out, but work will continue to undertake larger actions, such as improvements to accesses, which require works and permits, as explained by the Councilor for Local Development , Works and Services, Vanesa Martín.
Once the study was done, each owner was given their file so that they could consider the measures they could adopt and how to work from now on.
“The interesting thing is not to do the study and keep it on paper, but to follow a line of work”, underlines the mayor.
