The blue wheelchair stickers on businesses' windows to show accessibility mean nothing, according to a Hamilton couple campaigning for better wheelchair accessibility in the city.
Steve and Sharyn Taylor have three children: Hamish, 18, Austen, 15, and Lucy, 8.
Hamish and Austen both have Duchene Muscular Dystrophy and are wheelchair bound, which has made the family more alert to the issues of accessibility and the inadequate rating systems currently in use.
"A good example was when Hamish went to school camp at Waihi Beach. I asked the teachers if it is it wheelchair accessible, and they went over and had a look and came back and said yes. They've got the blue sign up, and it all looks good," said Mr Taylor.
"So we turn up there, we see the blues sign on the food hall of the camp, but then there was a step, right in front. How were we going to the wheelchair up there? So went over to the caretakers shed, found all the bits of timber I could, and I ended up having to build five ramps, just so he could get around the place. The showers weren't wheelchair accessible, the only one that was, was in the church, but it didn't have any hot water. These types of issues are common."
Mr Taylor is now involved with Be Accessible, a service that assesses the level of accessibility of a business and offers solutions on how to rectify any issues to make the building more mobility-friendly.
Once the building has met the requirements of the assessment as best they can, the appropriate star rating is awarded and takes precedence over any other rating, including the recognisable blue wheelchair sticker.
Mr Taylor said it comes down to a difference between the New Zealand building standards minimum specifications, and the recommended specifications for accessibility.
"The minimum for accessibility in the building code doesn't meet the actual requirements. A ramp in the building code says should be 1:8, which is 12.5 per cent gradient, but for someone in a wheelchair that's impossible to get up. It's quite steep, even in a power chair. So the building code says the absolute minimum is 1:8, but it recommends that you have a 1:12, which is 8 per cent," said Mr Taylor.
"Now, the building developer will look at it and go, well that's cheaper to build at the minimum so I'm going to build that. It still meets the code, and it still gets the tick off, but it doesn't work. It's absolutely useless."
But Mr Taylor said opting for short-term economic gain is pointless, with the cost of the retrofit to business owners being far higher than the cost of building to the recommended specifications to begin with.
"Accessibility is a huge issue in this country but has such small barriers. These small barriers become big barriers when they stop people from getting out in their community. It could just be a curb that isn't cut down that's too steep or it has a lip in it, or a shop might have a step to get inside. These are easily fixed, but no-one seems to know that it's an issue," said Mr Taylor.
"It's about mobility rather than just disability, for mothers with pushchairs, and people with canes or walkers or mobility scooters, too."
Cafe Strata owners Dianne and John Pepper chose to get an accessibility assessment done on their Anglesea Street business through Be Accessible earlier this year.
The couple's daughter and cafe manger Aimee Yeates said they were all happy with their silver star rating.
"We are in a medical centre complex and we have a lot of ill people around anyway, so it just made sense to make sure we were accessible to people in wheelchairs, and other people that are going to find it hard to get around. We jumped at the chance. The process was pretty easy, they just came in and had a look around and pointed out things that we could do, not that we had to do, but more made suggestions on things we could do to make it more accessible. There were a few things out of our control that we couldn't do, like the car parks and stuff. Construction on the toilet we couldn't do either because it's not our building," said Mrs Yeates.
"I don't know if it's been public enough yet to have made a huge difference yet, but we are really happy with our silver star rating. It means that we are pretty accessible really."
While Cafe Strata is one of a handful of businesses getting on board with Be Accessible, Mr Taylor said building accessibility was just the tip of the iceberg.
"When Austen catches the bus, he has to drive his wheelchair in, and park so he's sitting sideways because he can't turn around. It's uncomfortable for him. The town busses only have room for one wheelchair, so we can't use the bus service together as a family. Only the Orbiter takes two wheelchairs. It's better than before. There was one day before they changed the busses to accommodate wheelchairs that I had a meeting in town and Austen had to go to school, but Sharyn had the car.
"They go to Hillcrest High and we were never sure if the wheelchair bus was on that run each day. So you would have to ring up and check. But that day they said they couldn't tell me, so I had to chance my arm, leave him to it and just hope that the bus to Hillcrest was the wheelchair one. It's ridiculous.
"They're still teenagers. They want to go out and do stuff without their parents tagging along. Hamish is going to want to got to bars soon with his mates, but if they can't get anywhere, they won't go," he said.
"It's not because people are ignorant, or they don't care. It's just because they don't know. They just go with what the building code says."
To find out more about Be Accessible visit www.beaccessible.org.nz