London 2012 blog

Last week our new Head of Diversity and Inclusion Stephen Frost asked those of us who were in Beijing or going to Beijing to consider one of six elements – disability, belief, age, gender, ethnicity or sexual orientation in the context of China and the Games. For me there was no choice but to make it a challenge, so I resisted my natural choice – age! - and went for disability. Now I don’t profess to be an expert in these areas and it may be that if one of our disabled colleagues writes a future blog that is more insightful but anyhow, here is my small contribution.
Last Sunday I spent the morning at the Summer Palace north of Beijing. Stephen’s plea was fresh in my memory so I approached the visit thinking about accessibility. The Palace is located in an area of hills, palaces and shrines all set around a large lake. It is one of the most visited tourist sites in Beijing, so an early start was essential.

The entrance looked formidable: As with most ancient Chinese structures is a 30 centimetre high step in between the door uprights that makes access difficult. But on enquiry they showed me a side entrance for disabled visitors with ambulant restrictions.

The next challenge was the route up Eternity Hill: a small hill probably rising about 500 or 600ft in the centre of the park. There were plenty of signs indicating disabled access was possible, but I think a wheelchair basketball player would have seen it as a training session and a carer would have needed heart massage afterwards.


After the hill the next obstacles were the various decorative bridges leading to the water. And here we found a real sign that this country will go to some lengths when it grasps an equality issue.

For the old lady sitting in her wheelchair at the bottom of the stairs, and her forebears who also used wheelchairs, this was previously as far as they got without an embarrassing 'lift' across. Now, though not yet completed, the Palace guardians have cut an accessible path to link the two sides. After a a breif hesitation the old lady and her party managed to negotiate their way around and continued happily on the rest of their tour.

Water and boats are always popular attractions in tourist situations – but boats and wheelchairs tend not to mix. But as soon as we hit the lake we saw a boat casting off with a passenger in a wheelchair.


In any assessment of a tourist site for disabled people there is one essential that cannot be over-looked and that’s the loo of course. Does one exist? If it does, is it accessible? Towards the end of our tour we hunted out the conveniences and sure enough there was a sign suggesting that in this very busy toilet block was an accessible toilet. Undaunted I pushed my way into the throng anxious to use the facilities. I’m not sure what it was, but as soon as I started taking photos the place began to empty and people started shouting. I was only pointing my camera at an accessible cubicle for pity’s sake!

When I had finished everything I wanted to do inside (which was now deserted) and I explained what had been going on, Emma suggested we beat a hasty retreat to a bar OUTSIDE the Palace area...just in case!

It seems to me that even before they are held the Paralympic Games are acting as a massive catalyst for change. Even in the smallest of streets in central Beijing there is tactile paving embedded in the pavement. Some of it takes convoluted journeys around trees and other street furniture but it's there and it demonstrates a huge change in attitude.

China is going to extraordinary lengths in so many fields and using the Games as the launch pad. They don’t know what the impact of the Paralympic Games will be but they are already starting to reap the benefits if our trip to the Summer Palace is any evidence.