Dispatches from The Crown Estate: Debbie Clark – ADC

How did your report, ‘Inclusive Spaces and Places: A collaborative approach to inclusive design’ come about?

In the UK, one in four people live with a disability. When inclusivity is expanded to encompass ethnicity, gender, and other protected characteristics, its impact is immense. The built environment is at a crossroads, with growing recognition that inclusivity is not a compliance issue but a moral and economic imperative.

It was from an inspiring and thought-provoking session with Sinead Burke, disability consultant and campaigner, that we established the need to ‘go deep’ on a small number of moves that could help drive a systemic shift.  Over the two years that followed, we hosted workshops in diverse environments with people of varied experiences and inclusive design experts, refining our focus to develop clear recommendations. It was this which led to the creation of our report, Inclusive Spaces and Places: A Collaborative Approach to Inclusive Design, based on extensive research and analysis by The Crown Estate and Grosvenor and underpinned by lived experiences.

What do you want it to achieve moving forward?

Current building standards fall short in ensuring accessibility and inclusivity, and the industry risks missing opportunities by not prioritising inclusive design early on. Our report offers practical resources, clear recommendations, and open-source tools that property owners can adopt to embed inclusivity at every stage of design and development.

How would you define The Crown Estate’s role in advancing inclusive design across your properties?

As custodians of some of the UK’s most iconic spaces, The Crown Estate is uniquely positioned to champion inclusive design within our properties and across the industry.

Initiatives such as the GLA’s inclusive design in the London Plan and RIBA’s Inclusive Design Overlay show that momentum is building across the sector, and it will be through bringing these together that real change occurs.

In collaboration with Motionspot, we’ve developed an ‘Inclusive Design Brief’ for our developments, which includes prompts for design teams to use throughout the project timeline and a list of recommendations that go beyond minimum standards.

In practical terms, our role as custodians of Regent Street serves as an example of advancing inclusive design across London’s West End. Earlier this year, we shared plans for Regent Street’s public realm in collaboration with Westminster City Council and London stakeholders, incorporating feedback from visitors, users, and residents to make the West End more accessible and inclusive.

The report mentions the potential financial benefits of inclusive design. Can you share how inclusive design has positively impacted tenant relationships or occupancy rates?

Investing in inclusive spaces makes moral and commercial sense. Brands in our retail and leisure properties increasingly prioritise accessibility to enhance customer experience and drive revenue. The Purple Pound report underscores this, estimating the spending power of households with at least one disabled person at £300 billion annually.

Balancing heritage and accessibility is often seen as a conflict, but it’s an opportunity to innovate.”

We’ve seen tangible examples of the benefits of inclusive design through insights shared by Michelle, a wheelchair user, and Alan, who is neurodivergent. They’ve highlighted tools like the AccessAble and Sociability apps, which provide pre-arrival accessibility information, and simple yet impactful changes such as widening supermarket aisles.

Looking to workplaces, inclusive design is becoming more of a priority as businesses want to reflect their values to clients and ensure a strong talent pipeline. Grosvenor’s Fivefields office space is a key example of placing inclusivity at the heart of design to create a community feel. The space demonstrates this with creative solutions like step-free access, height-adjustable workstations, and neurodivergent-friendly design elements. Despite challenges posed by its listed building status, the project exemplifies how inclusivity can drive commercial success.

By embedding inclusivity early, property owners can avoid stranded assets and costly retrofits while creating spaces with lasting social, environmental, and commercial value.

With many of your properties being historically significant, how do you reconcile heritage preservation with the need for accessibility and inclusivity?

Balancing heritage and accessibility is often seen as a conflict, but it’s an opportunity to innovate. Many have challenged the narrative that preservation and inclusivity are at odds, demonstrating that heritage buildings can—and must—be accessible to remain relevant.

One of the clear insights from our workshops was that there’s an expectation for property owners to demonstrate their commitment to inclusive design and how they are thinking about adaptation and experience of people with diverse needs, and with the recognition that heritage buildings have some constraints that require innovation and may never be perfect in this respect. However, there was much less forgiveness in respect of newer buildings whereby decisions have been made in a modern era where the expectation on inclusion and ensuring equitable experiences is rightly high.

Historically, investment in sustainability within the built environment was seen as a cost, but now sustainable commercial property is in high demand, with owners and tenants paying higher rents to meet their own internal green targets and values, and the same is likely to be true of accessibility over coming years.

What have been some of the biggest challenges in implementing inclusive design across The Crown Estate’s portfolio, and how are you addressing them?

Alongside the hurdles associated with retrofitting heritage buildings, one of the biggest challenges is measuring the impact of inclusive environments on the people who use them and translating this data into understandable and impactful insights for our customers. Our report with Grosvenor aims to address this issue by using a framework that combines qualitative, quantitative, and data-led metrics to truly evaluate impact. This approach allows us to measure, understand, and communicate the value of inclusive design effectively.

As social sustainability evolves, what are the long-term goals for The Crown Estate in fostering more inclusive spaces?

The most effective and efficient way to drive improvement is to integrate inclusive design as a crucial part of any retrofit project, rather than treating it as separate from, say, net-zero retrofitting efforts. By aligning these goals, we can maximise impact, ensuring that both sustainability and accessibility are addressed in tandem.

Our next phase is about ensuring the principles and recommendations are understood, integrated and adopted as business as usual, ensuring that built environment teams become, by default, experts in inclusive design.

We recognise that this is something we need to look at as a collective industry, but we want to encourage a broader conversation and share knowledge to drive this systemic change and create environments that are accessible and inclusive for all. Our places and spaces have always had immense potential to inspire and succeed, but we must consider the diversity of experiences to allow people to thrive and feel included.