FEATURED ARTICLE
RYAN v SCHHS: a life changing landmark decision by Bryce Tolliday
Bryce Tolliday is an accredited member of ACAA and a qualified access consultant who has been practicing as an access consultant for 22 years. He is the Managing Director and a Senior Access Consultant at Wayfinding Australia Pty Ltd which trades as Access Allways Consultants. Bryce represents ACAA on the AS1428.4.2 Standards Committee and has been a contributor to a number of pieces of research including the CRC Innovation Wayfinding System Audit Checklist and Wayfinding Design Guidelines and the Queensland Health Wayfinding Design Guidelines.
P
eter Ryan was a hard working man, a man who worked for some of his life as an able bodied man in a physical environment. A builder, a stone mason, a labourer and a father and up until 1970, Peter was a normal man, no different than most of us. He was a man who lived with diabetes but in 1970 he was diagnosed with diabetic retinopathy and became legally blind with only 2% usable vision. Peter, through his life experiences as a man with disabilities became a leader of several disability groups in his life. He was passionate about representing people who had disabilities in what he saw as a struggle to improve access to buildings and the services provided. There was a long period where, despite his disabilities, he was very mobile, thanks to his four-legged companions, Virgil being his most trusted friend. As Peter aged, he developed a number of additional debilitating conditions,
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particularly in the last 5 years, which included issues with his kidneys, lungs and eventually he was severely overweight (bariatric). Peter often gave his time up to talk to anyone who would listen about his disability and how it impacted his life. He would go to Primary School’s with Virgil and speak to classrooms full of kids about his illness and what it was like being blind. He was a stickler on educating little kids about the importance of eating green vegetables which, because he hated them when he was young, were entirely to blame for him having diabetes. When I first met Peter, which was about 25 years ago, buildings were not accessible like they are now. The Disability Discrimination Act was a very new Law. The famous Cocks v The State of Queensland, a complaint under the Queensland Anti Discrimination Act, had only recently been decided (1994), a decision which changed the Building Code, as it was, to ensure that the main entrances of all buildings were accessible to people using wheelchairs. This was a landmark decision based on Queensland state law. Peter was most interested in this decision and how he could use this to improve access for people with low vision in the built environment. He made his first complaint under the DDA in 2002, a complaint about access within a medical centre. This was a very personal complaint to Peter, as at the
THE MAGAZINE FOR THE ASSOCIATION OF CONSULTANTS IN ACCESS AUSTRALIA
