London was not built in one go.
It is a city of Roman street patterns, medieval lanes, Georgian terraces, Victorian bridges, railway arches, Edwardian stations, post-war estates and modern towers. New London has been built on, around and sometimes underneath what was already there.
That layering is part of what makes the city fascinating. It also creates a difficult question: how does a city built over centuries adapt to become accessible to everyone who lives in it or comes to visit?
Over the past week, that question has appeared in a surprising number of apparently unrelated stories.
On 1 July, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers published new research putting an economic value on the consequences of inaccessible transport.
Days later, the future of one of London’s best-known Victorian bridges was back in the news. On 6 July, Hammersmith & Fulham Council considered a new approach to the repair of Hammersmith Bridge, while a community campaign proposing lightweight electric shuttles across it was attracting wider attention.
These may look like separate stories. Together, they raise a much bigger question about the kind of city London wants to become.
The cost we don’t count
Accessibility is often discussed as a cost.
How much will a lift cost? Can an old structure take the additional weight? How expensive will it be to adapt an entrance?
A new report from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers asks us to look at the calculation from the other direction.
What is the cost of not making places accessible?
Published on 1 July, the Institution’s report, Mobility as a Multiplier: Unlocking the Economic Potential of Inclusive Transport, argues that inaccessible transport is not only a social problem but an economic one.
Read the Institution of Mechanical Engineers report on inclusive transport.
The Institution estimates that transport barriers contribute to around 2.8 million people being effectively locked out of the workforce. Its modelling suggests that removing transport barriers to employment could generate up to £176.4 billion in economic output each year, alongside additional spending in retail, leisure and tourism.
These are modelled estimates, not a prediction that every pound would immediately materialise. But the underlying point is important.
We are good at counting the cost of an intervention. We are much less good at counting the job someone could not accept, the restaurant they could not visit, the cultural experience they could not reach, or the journey they decided was simply too difficult to attempt.
For London, that question goes far beyond transport.
A city full of inherited barriers
London was built over centuries in which accessibility was rarely treated as a public design requirement.
The result is a city full of physical barriers that have become so familiar that many people barely notice them, unless those barriers prevent them from making a journey at all.
Steps lead into shops and pubs. Historic buildings contain narrow corridors and sudden changes of level. Cobbled surfaces become difficult for wheelchairs and painful for some people with limited mobility. Heavy doors, poor signage and inadequate lighting create other barriers.
Not every disability is visible, and not every accessibility problem is solved by a ramp.
Historic England’s guidance on improving access to historic buildings and landscapes recognises the complexity of adapting older places. Its approach is not that conservation and access are necessarily opposing forces. It encourages owners, architects and managers to understand both the significance of a historic place and the needs of its users, then explore creative solutions.
The tension between conservation and access is real, but London’s historic buildings have always changed.
Houses become offices. Warehouses become galleries. Power stations become homes, shops and cultural venues. Churches acquire heating, electricity and modern toilets. Buildings are repaired, extended and adapted for fire safety and new uses.
Accessibility is another part of that continuing evolution.
The challenge is how to adapt intelligently and sensitively, rather than treating history as either an obstacle to inclusion or something that must be swept aside.
What if you are only here for the weekend?
Accessibility is also a visitor economy issue.
For a disabled visitor, planning a trip to London can mean researching not simply what they want to see, but whether they can enter it, move around it, find an accessible toilet, get there from their hotel and rely on the information provided online.
That uncertainty can shape where people go, how long they stay and how much of London they experience.
VisitEngland’s research on accessible and inclusive tourism estimates the accessible tourism market in England at £14.6 billion annually.
There is evidence that London performs relatively well, but not universally well. The London & Partners Visitor Experience Strategy found that 80 per cent of recent visitors with accessibility requirements felt that their needs were met.
That is encouraging. But it also means that one in five did not.
The challenge is particularly interesting in a city whose history is one of its greatest attractions.
At the Tower of London, for example, Historic Royal Palaces is candid that wheelchair access is limited in parts of the site because of difficult stairs, spiral staircases, cobbled surfaces, low doorways and narrow passageways. At the same time, accessible routes and facilities are provided across parts of the site, with detailed information available before people arrive.
See the Tower of London accessibility information.
This illustrates the reality of accessibility in a historic city.
Not every part of every building can necessarily be made physically accessible. But that does not remove the responsibility to make as much of the experience as possible available, provide accurate information and think creatively about alternatives.
The visitor experience also depends on the whole journey.
An accessible museum is of limited use if a visitor cannot find a suitable hotel room nearby. A step-free attraction may still be difficult to visit if the surrounding streets are hard to navigate or there is nowhere to sit.
For a city whose economy depends heavily on visitors, accessibility is not a marginal issue. It affects who chooses London, how independently they can experience it and how much of the city they can take part in once they arrive.
A Victorian bridge and a very modern problem
Few places illustrate the challenge of adapting inherited infrastructure better than Hammersmith Bridge.
The current bridge opened in 1887. Its ornate green and gold structure is one of the most distinctive crossings of the Thames, but it is also an ageing and unusually complex piece of infrastructure.
The bridge closed to motor traffic in 2019 after cracks were discovered in its cast-iron pedestals. Following stabilisation and resurfacing works, its main carriageway reopened in April 2025 for pedestrians, cyclists, wheelchair users and e-scooter users, but cars and buses remain excluded.
Follow the official Hammersmith Bridge updates from Hammersmith & Fulham Council.
Now its future is back in the news.
A council report considered in early July recommended a phased approach to further repairs rather than pursuing full restoration for motor traffic at present. The proposed direction focuses on critical repairs and safeguarding access for pedestrians, cyclists and river traffic.
For many people, the absence of cars has created a quieter and more pleasant crossing.
But not everyone can comfortably walk, wheel or cycle the distance between Barnes and Hammersmith.
That has created space for an unusual idea.
Could small electric pods fill the gap?
Barnes Hammersmith Electric Light Transit, or BHELT, is a community group campaigning for lightweight electric public transport across the bridge.
Its proposal is to use small autonomous electric shuttles to provide a connection for people who cannot easily make the crossing on foot or by bike. The idea of lightweight electric pods has previously been explored as a potential way to reconnect people with mobility difficulties to public transport and amenities on the Hammersmith side of the river.
Explore the BHELT Electric Light Transit proposal.
There are important questions still to answer.
The bridge remains subject to structural constraints. Any service would need to operate safely alongside people walking, wheeling and cycling. Regulatory approval, capacity, frequency, operating costs and integration with public transport at either end would all need consideration.
It is a proposal, not an approved transport service.
But it is interesting because it asks a different question about technology.
Much of the discussion about autonomous vehicles has focused on whether driverless cars or robotaxis might replace journeys currently made by human-driven vehicles.
The Hammersmith Bridge proposal is more specific.
Could new technology help solve an accessibility problem created by the physical limitations of an old city?
That is a useful way to think about innovation. Not technology looking for somewhere to be deployed, but a particular urban problem looking for a practical solution.
Whether electric pods are ultimately the answer for Hammersmith Bridge remains to be seen. But the question behind the proposal is one that London will have to ask repeatedly as it adapts inherited infrastructure to modern needs.
The city we inherit, and the city we leave behind
London cannot rebuild itself from scratch. Nor should it want to.
The city’s bridges, streets and buildings carry its history. But they also carry the assumptions of the periods in which they were built, including assumptions about who would use them and how.
The challenge is not to make every part of an old city work in exactly the same way. It is to keep asking where barriers can be removed, where places can be adapted and where new ideas might solve old problems.
That could mean a lift carefully inserted into a historic building, clearer information that allows a visitor to plan their day with confidence, or perhaps a very small electric bus crossing a Victorian bridge.
None of these interventions will make London accessible on its own.
But perhaps that is the point. London was not built in one go, and it will not become accessible in one go either.
The question is whether each generation leaves the city a little easier for the next one to use.
