Ms Terry Fletcher who is now the Chairperson for this Access Committee
has sent me the following email;
"Thank you for your e-mail to me regarding access for pwd's for the
Olympic
and Paralympic Games. There is an Olympic Access Advisory Committee
which
has been meeting since 1996. It is a committee of the Olympic
Co-ordination Authority(OCA) which is responsible for building the
venues
and facilities for the Olympic and Paralympic games. The peak consumer
bodies are represented on the committee for people with mobility,
vision,
hearing and intellectual disabilities. There are also representatives
from
SOCOG, SPOC, NSW Anti-discrimination Board, ACROD and OCA.
http://www.oca.nsw.gov.au
The Committee developed Access Guidelines which OCA Project Managers are
required to follow. These are best practice guidelines and in many
instances go further than the technical specifications of AS1428 Part 2.
Each project is required to present their Access Strategy to the
committee
which provides input and signs off and there is an access task force for
each project which meets at the design stage and throughout the
development. Many of the venues are nearing completion and the
committee's
task forces are in the process of monitoring constructions. Access is
well
in hand for all venues and the urban domain. Transport issues are also
being addressed.
The committee was established by David Richmond, the Director General of
OCA. He has a disability and was at one time the chair of the
Disability
Council of NSW. You may have heard of him when he was Director of the
NSW
Dept of Health and he produced the Richmond Report which advocated
closing
institutions for pwd's and integrating people into community living. We
are very fortunate to have his support and the committee was his
initiative. We have a very co-operatve relationship with OCA staff which
is
great.
The chair of the committee was Jane Woodruff who was the Director
General
of The NSW Ageing And Disability Department(ADD) up till a few weeks
ago.
She is a tireless worker for disability and now has a job at OCA and
will be
involved in access issues along with other matters. I was deputy chair
and now
I am the chair of the committee.
Today I spoke with her about your inquiry and she has asked
that you contact her by email. She went to the Atlanta games and tried
to
contact the pwd's involved with access issues but says they could not be
found. I mentioned about setting up a web site as you suggested and she
said that OCA is discussing this right now. Her email is
mailto:[log in to unmask]"
I have since spoken to Jane Woodruff regarding Access for PWD's to the
Sydney Olympics and she is very keen to hear from people who have
attended
previous Olympics or have used the current Sydney facilities to let her
know
not only the problems you experienced but the things that worked as
well. She
is certainly keen to hear of any ideas or solutions you can suggest.
At present they are thinking of adding a disability access and services
section
to
their current web-site http://www.oca.nsw.gov.au and Jane would like to
hear
from people as to what we think should be on the web-site.
If you have any suggestions and/or comments please email Jane Woodruff
at
mailto:[log in to unmask]
Thanks.
Frank Hall-Bentick
President
Disability Australia
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