Roger Mackett, Helena Titheridge and Kamal Achuthan Centre for Transport Studies

1. TRANSED 2012, Delhi, India, 17-21 September 2012The impact of changes to access to local facilities on the wellbeing of elderly and disabled people Roger Mackett, Helena Titheridge and Kamal Achuthan Centre for Transport Studies University College London

2. Why does access to local facilities matter? • Local facilities help people to meet their needs for food, health, welfare, and leisure. • This requires both the availability of facilities and transport to access them. • The provision of services costs money, either public or private. • In times of economic difficulty, public money can be saved by closing local facilities. • This may have an adverse effects on people’s lives.

3. The approach being adopted • A software tool, AMELIA, has been developed to test the effects of policy and other changes on the lives of members of the community • AMELIA is a policy-oriented user-friendly interface to a geographical information system (GIS) • AMELIA is applied to before and after situation and the differences in the number of people able to access the facilities calculated

4. The policy analysis tool A Methodology for Enhancing Life by Increasing Accessibility

5. The elements of the policy analysis tool, AMELIA Policy objective Output indicator or benchmark Changes in the number of socially excluded people meeting the benchmarks Policy actions to achieve the objective Analysis of the impact of the actions Data on the population in a socially-excluded group Data on the local area (transport networks, opportunities, etc)

6. The application of AMELIA • Two applications are considered: • The impact of the Post Office Network Change programme in Great Britain • The reorganisation of public libraries • These are examined for: • The county of Hertfordshire • The city of St Albans • They are considered for: • The whole population • Elderly people • Disabled people • In this application the differences for elderly and disabled people reflect only differences in residential patterns

7. The roles of post offices and public libraries in the lives of older and disabled people • Post Offices allow access to money from the state for older and disabled people • While many of these benefits can be paid directly into bank accounts, some people need cash to meet their everyday needs • Public libraries are the gateways to information, written and electronic • Public libraries are also centres for social and community events • Visiting post offices and libraries provides opportunities for social interaction

8. The study areas St Albans Hertfordshire

9. The Post Office Network Change Programme • In May 2007 the UK Government announced a programme of closure of 2,500 out of 14,300 post offices. • Minimum access criteria were defined in order to maintain ‘the best possible access to Post Office services’. These included: • 99% of the UK population to be within 3 miles (4.8 km) and 90% of the population to be within 1 mile (1.6 km) of their nearest Post Office branch. • 99% of the total population in deprived urban areas across the UK to be within 1 mile (1.6 km) of their nearest Post Office branch.

10. The location of post offices in Hertfordshire

11. Numbers of people living within 1 mile (1.6 km) of a Post Office before and after the closure programme

12. Numbers of people living within 1 mile (1.6 km) of a Post Office before and after the closure programme

13. Numbers of people who lose their nearest Post Office

14. The library rationalisation programme in Hertfordshire

15. Numbers of people living within 1 mile (1.6 km) of a library before and after the reorganization programmes

16. Numbers of people living within 1 mile (1.6 km) of a library before and after the reorganization programmes

17. Numbers of people who lose their nearest library

18. Findings • The Post Office Closure programme in the UK has led to significant numbers of people in Hertfordshire losing their nearest post office • Many people in Hertfordshire fall below the ‘Minimum access criterion’ • The library reorganisation process in Hertfordshire has led to about 4% of the population losing their nearest library, with 16% of those in St Albans losing theirs • The changes must have had an adverse effect on wellbeing • The percentage of disabled people adversely affected by the changes is higher than the overall population

19. Further research • The differences in access level between the groups depend on spatial differences in residential location. Further research should take into account the method of travel used; since there tends to be less use of the car by elderly and disabled people than the whole population, this is likely to show a greater impact on these people • The methodology could be applied to other services such as health and welfare services

20. Conclusions • The approach shows that changes in the availability of local facilities can have complex spatial implications • In some cases these reorganisation programmes have greater impacts on elderly and disabled people • The approach could be used in consultation exercises with the public including elderly and disabled people