Promoting disability equality and inclusive learning in planning education

In the UK, the Disability Discrimination Act 2005 created a positive duty on the public sector to promote disability equality. This duty extends to higher education and local planning authorities. Based on Zuber-Skerrit's CRASP model for professional development, this paper examines an initiative to enact the duty. It details a completed action research project with undergraduate students and an adult learning project, that works with adults labeled as 'learning disabled'. The paper considers how this co-educational learning experience enabled the undergraduate students to engage with the principles of inclusive design in the built environment and offers a model for how inclusive policy and practice may be implemented at the university level, and particularly in built environment courses.