Gladstone Regional Council

Building and Public Space Disability Access Audits

Ensuring access to all Council facilities, services, programs and activities was identified as an essential objective for Gladstone Regional Council.

Macutex was engaged by Council to undertake an Access Audit of all Council facilities and public places with a view to establishing a baseline of non-compliant issues and identifying the risks and opportunities that currently exists within its asset portfolio. Workshops were conducted with Council staff and community stakeholder representatives before and after the onsite audit program to ensure that the Gladstone Region community’s views were taken into account.

The audit program was conducted across 39 property facilities and 60 public spaces including recreational parks and reserves. The audit was undertaken against the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (DDA), the Building Code of Australia (BCA), Disability (Access to Premises – Buildings) Standards 2010, and Australian Standard AS1428.

As part of the findings analysis and reporting process a Priority Matrix Methodology was implemented to ensure a consistent, validated and measurable means by which to assist in prioritising all associated upgrade works. This unique methodology developed by Macutex allows Council to incorporate key input variables such as anticipated benefit, disruption of works, and facility use frequencies amongst others to assign priority ratings for ease of prioritisation and reporting.