The state of accessibility of public buildings today is still inadequate, as the vast majority of buildings are not adapted to the needs of people with disabilities, as confirmed both by our expert inventories of buildings in the field and by the data obtained through the survey conducted by the Equality Advocate. To date, the Urban Planning Institute of the Republic of Slovenia has carried out detailed assessments of more than 350 buildings in public use on the basis of the legislation in force in the field of universal construction and the standards in force, which represents only a small proportion of all existing buildings in public use in Slovenia, and on the basis of which it is not possible to give a situation on the accessibility of all buildings in Slovenia.
In order to provide a better overview of the situation in Slovenia, the Institute is developing a tool for self-description of accessibility of facilities, where owners/managers/tenants of facilities and users of services will self-evaluate and provide a basic assessment of the accessibility of their facility based on a common methodology. The tool will be available later this year and we expect this tool to provide a larger amount of data to help us assess the situation in Slovenia.
Detailed inventories and accessibility assessments are being continued in the framework of the project "National Awareness Raising Campaigns on Social Inclusion of People with Disabilities". This information is crucial for building owners, architects and builders planning adaptations, and gives people with disabilities an insight into the accessibility of buildings before they visit them. We note that adaptations are often carried out without proper consultation of experts or disabled people's organisations, leading to solutions that formally meet the requirements but in practice do not serve the users.
It is the incorrect or incomplete adaptations that are the biggest missed opportunity. Typical examples of deficiencies are inadequate ramps, renovations of sanitary facilities that do not meet dimensional standards, or signage on glass surfaces that do not provide sufficient contrast for the visually impaired. Temporary solutions such as mobile ramps or crawler lifts are also inadequate as they do not guarantee independent use and, consequently, independent access and movement within the facilities.