Municipal plans for doing away with architectural barriers in roads, parks and public gardens.
In order to get to know municipal plans for accessibility in different types of Spanish localities, the Office of the Ombudsman has undertaken an investigation with three cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants (Bilbao, Tarragona and Coruña), three with 10,000 to 100,000 (Soria, Tudela and Ciudad Real) and three with fewer than 10,000 inhabitants (Daroca, Alburquerque and Toro).
The institution asked the city councils whether they had municipal accessibility plans for doing away with architectural barriers in public roads, parks and municipal gardens.
It also asked them for information about the procedures that they have put in place for members of the public to lodge their claims concerning architectural barriers.
In October and November 2016 the institution conducted a survey to find out what people with disability thought about architectural barriers in roads and public spaces, and the accessibility problems that they encountered in their daily lives.
Most of the 2,542 people who completed the survey said that their municipalities did not have a satisfactory level of accessibility. They also stressed the difficulties that they encounter in letting their city councils know about the shortcomings detected and the fact that their requests were left unanswered.
4 December 2017 is the legal deadline for urbanised public spaces and existing buildings to be accessible. So the Office is undertaking this investigation to find out what precautions the city councils are taking to eliminate existing architectural barriers.
