Mr. Brendan Allen:

I have been working in planning for 25 years or thereabouts. In my education there was a awareness of it. Generally speaking, it was around the more physical, or seen, disabilities. From travelling abroad and from reading publications from the UK and the United States, I have noticed a higher awareness of the unseen disabilities. This would particularly apply to the design of major infrastructure or public building projects. For example, in the UK, when they designed the new Tottenham Hotspur stadium in White Hart Lane, they built in a sensory space. For somebody who might find it difficult to deal with a crowd of 50,000 people or whatever, they become fully inclusive through that model. That is becoming more and more common. I cannot speak on what kind of education architects get but from the planners' perspective we are dealing with a zoom out space, public realm and public spaces and that type of thing. There is an increasing awareness about things like finishes, visuals and signage to make it easier for people with autism to navigate. People with autism need predictability when moving around spaces. In order to increase awareness of this issue, we had the participation of Mr. Stuart Neilson, a director of AsIAm, in our CPD. Originally the CPD was set out to deal more with universal access, often associated with physical disabilities. To gain an insight into the issue of unseen disabilities, we asked Mr. Neilson to participate.