“Would people accept a women’s organisation run by men?”

Tara Flood makes the comparison when she talks about decisions made every day about how people living with disabilities live – without anyone asking what they think.

To many people, the word “disability” brings to mind someone in a wheelchair.

But Ms Flood points out they make up a minority of the capital’s disabled population.

Many Londoners live with invisible and learning disabilities - and the challenges faced by a blind person, are not the same as someone living with dyspraxia.

“Independent living strategies for disabled people, of all ages, should not be trying to pigeon-hole people into different impairment groups,” Ms Flood said.

Ms Flood, is a veteran disability rights campaigner- she was involved in the development of the United Nations’ new Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and is a Paralympics medallist, collecting the gold for 50-metre breaststroke in 1992, where she set a world record time.

Ms Flood is working with the London borough of Hammersmith and Fulham (H&F) to ensure the council makes no decisions affecting disabled people’s lives, without consulting them.

The launch of the Disabled People's Commission Report at The Irish Centre, Hammersmith

The council has agreed to “co-produce” any policies affecting disabled people with residents living with those challenges, including supporting young people making the transition to adulthood.

Ms Flood, also the director of the Alliance for Inclusive Education, is spearheading how that reform will look.

An H&F commissioned independent report released last week (June 20), made recommendations to the council not just to consult with disabled people on any decision-making that affects them – but to invite them to co-produce policies.

One recent example is the works on the replacement Hammersmith Town Hall, which took into account the needs of disabled people, who were able to work with architects and planners on the design.

Ms Flood’s foreword to the report emphasises that support for disabled people to live happy lives is not just about access.

Disabled people experience limited life choices and opportunities, unmet personal and social care needs, isolation, unemployment, unsuitable housing, poverty, abuse and violence, and some face additional discrimination due to their ethnicity, she wrote.

The report was produced by ten local disabled people, who have formed a Disabled People’s Commission chaired by Ms Flood.

They sought affected people’s views, guided by the principle of “nothing about disabled people without disabled people.”

Not all disabilities are visible

About one in six people in the borough described themselves as having an impairment or long term health issue in the 2011 census.

In the UK, 13.3 million people described themselves as living with an impairment in 2015/16.

Research showed disabled people were twice as likely as non-disabled adults to live in persistent poverty.

The commissioners each provided insights into the barriers they had personally faced in the report, from access to social attitudes: writing of public toilets they couldn’t use, and people assuming they were drunk because of the way they walked.

“Council tried to place me in unknown areas, being blind means being placed in unknown areas will render me housebound,” one testified.

In 2015, H&F had become the first council to abolish home care charges in the UK following lobbying by local disabled people.

The Labour-led council had asked Ms Flood to become involved in improving their services for disabled people the following year.

She said its move should be celebrated – as by her estimation it is the first London borough to vow to produce policy in partnership with disabled people.

H&F leader Cllr Stephen Cowan said the council wanted to ensure quality and the right to contribute for the borough’s disabled people.

“We are not afraid to challenge unfairness and old-fashioned thinking in how we work. And these recommendations will make a major difference as we move towards making changes.”

Ms Flood said she planned to keep a close watch to ensure that promises were delivered.

“What I don’t want is the opportunity to have our say; what I want is the council to engage and deliver.”