The access chapter of a Design and Access Statement

The access section of a Design and Access Statement has to explain how people will reach the site, get through the entrance and move around once inside, and why those arrangements were chosen. Article 9(3) of the Town and Country Planning (Development Management Procedure) (England) Order 2015 sets out what it must cover: the policy adopted as to access, how development plan policies on access were taken into account, what consultation took place on access and what came of it, and how specific access issues affecting the development have been addressed. Read that list against the statements that cross a case officer's desk and the gap is obvious. Eight pages of design narrative, then one sentence about level thresholds.

What the access section has to address

The statutory wording is access to the development, which is wider than the front door. It covers the journey from the public highway or the bus stop, across whatever lies between the boundary and the building, through the entrance and into the parts of the building the public or the occupier will use. On a householder scheme that journey is short. On a school, a surgery or a block of flats it involves kerbs, crossings, gradients, gates, thresholds, lifts and signs, each of which can be got wrong independently of the others.

Two habits weaken the chapter. The first is reciting Approved Document M as though planning and building control were the same consent. The second is describing the finished condition without describing the decision. An officer reading the statement wants to know what constrained the approach and what you did about it, in the same way that a well written environmental statement explains how its baseline chapter was scoped rather than simply presenting numbers.

Write the section around the site. A level plot with a footway on both sides deserves three paragraphs. A sloping plot with a 1.8 metre fall across the frontage, a protected street tree beside the only possible dropped kerb and a listed boundary wall deserves two pages, because every one of those constraints pushes the design somewhere.

Approach, arrival and entry

Start at the point of arrival and follow the route. Which entrance will most people use, and is it the accessible one. Where does the taxi or the community transport minibus stop, and how far is that from the door. If the accessible route diverges from the main route, say so and say why, because a separate side entrance for wheelchair users will be picked up in consultation responses from access groups where the council consults them.

Surface materials belong here rather than only in the design narrative. Loose gravel, cobbles and wide-jointed setts read well in a conservation area and are hard to cross with a wheeled frame, so if a planning officer is pushing for a traditional surface, the access section is where that tension gets resolved on paper. The same applies to planting. A generous scheme that hits the urban greening targets discussed in our note on the urban greening factor can still leave a 1.2 metre pinch point beside a raised bed.

Entrance doors need a stated opening force strategy, a canopy or recess where the approach is exposed, and a landing that is actually level rather than laid to fall for drainage.

Levels, thresholds and gradients

Gradient is where most schemes quietly fail. Approved Document M treats an approach shallower than 1:20 as level, and anything steeper as a ramped approach with the going limited by the slope: roughly 10 metres at 1:20, 5 metres at 1:15 and 2 metres at 1:12, with landings between flights. Those numbers govern building control, and planning still cares about them, because a ramp long enough to satisfy them may not fit inside the plot you are applying for.

That is the honest reason this belongs in a planning statement. Ramp geometry consumes frontage. Frontage is what the site layout is made of.

Illustrative example: a single storey extension to a village hall on ground falling 900 millimetres from the highway. A 1:15 ramped approach needs three 5 metre flights with landings, around 20 metres of run once turning space is added. The plot has 11 metres. Resolving that meant regrading the car park to lift the arrival level by 400 millimetres, which changed the drainage design and the surface water discharge point, and the planning application had to show both. Figures here are illustrative and used to show the method.

Thresholds deserve a sentence each where the building is existing. A 150 millimetre stone step into a listed shopfront cannot always be removed, and the reasonable answer may be a discreet internal ramp with the historic step retained. Say that, and cross-refer to the heritage evidence rather than leaving the officer to guess.

Parking, drop-off and blue badge bays

Quantity comes from the adopted parking standards, which vary by authority and by zone within an authority, so cite the policy and the zone. Designated bay provision for buildings other than dwellings follows Approved Document M, which looks for a bay for each disabled employee plus a proportion of total capacity for visitors. Dimensions come from BS 8300-1, which sets the bay width plus a side and rear access zone so that a wheelchair can be transferred and a boot opened.

Three points are usually missing:

1. The route from the designated bay to the entrance, including its gradient, surface and whether it crosses a vehicle route.
2. Drop-off provision where the building serves people who arrive by taxi, ambulance or minibus, with the swept path if the vehicle has to turn.
3. Cycle parking that an adapted cycle or a cargo cycle can actually use, which rules out two-tier racks as the only provision.

Where parking is being reduced below standard, the access case and the transport case have to agree with each other. A Travel Plan that assumes a walk-in catchment sits badly beside an access statement describing a building for people with limited mobility, and officers do read the two together.

Wayfinding and legibility

Wayfinding is the part most often padded with adjectives. Keep it concrete. Can a first-time visitor see the entrance from the point of arrival. Is the reception desk visible from the door, or does the route bend. What is the signage strategy at decision points, and is there a tactile or audible element where the building serves people with sight loss.

Legibility also means lighting. An accessible route that works at 11am and is unlit at 5pm in December is not accessible, and a lighting layout that avoids glare and deep shadow at changes of level is a planning matter because it affects the external appearance and the neighbours.

Access during construction

Almost no statement covers this and some validation lists ask for it. If the works will close a footway, narrow it, or put a hoarding across a bus stop, the statement should say how pedestrians will be managed, which licences will be sought from the highway authority under the Highways Act 1980, and how access to neighbouring premises will be maintained. On a town centre site this can be the difference between a supportive and a hostile consultation response from nearby businesses.

Keep it proportionate. Two paragraphs and a cross-reference to the construction management documents is usually enough at application stage.

Where building control takes over

Planning decides whether the development is acceptable in principle and in layout. Building control decides technical compliance with Part M, and the optional requirements M4(2) and M4(3) for dwellings only apply where the local plan and a planning condition bring them in. So the access section should state which standard the scheme is being designed to, and where a percentage of wheelchair user dwellings is required by policy, identify those units on the plans.

Anything the statement promises can end up as a condition. Promise what the drawings support. And if a constraint means the scheme falls short of a standard, say which standard, by how much, and why the alternative was worse, because an unexplained shortfall invites a refusal reason that a paragraph of honesty would have avoided.

This is general guidance, not legal advice, and access requirements vary with the building type and the adopted local plan, so check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it. PlanScope drafts a Design and Access Statement structured to the statutory headings and flags the site facts it needs from you. Browse all 66 PlanScope report types and start a draft.

PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.