Case study
How Liverpool creates more inclusive places with Sociability
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Meet Liverpool City
Liverpool is rapidly establishing itself as a city of inclusive tourism. With Sociability’s collaboration, the city has taken significant strides to ensure that disabled visitors have the confidence, tools, and information they need to explore the city’s bustling centre and exciting attractions with ease.
Working with both Liverpool ONE - one of the UK’s leading retail and leisure destinations - and the city council, we’ve created Accessibility Area Maps for top attractions and big name events like Radio 1’s Big Weekend in Sefton Park, showcasing how Liverpool is leading by example when it comes to accessible engagement.
The challenge
For many, planning a weekend away is a matter of booking accommodation, checking transport, and browsing restaurant options. But for disabled people, every step of that process is magnified, complicated, and often frustrating.
Accessibility information, if it exists at all, is usually buried deep in websites, outdated, vague, or overly generic. There’s no consistency between venues, and few provide detail on the things that truly matter: step-free entrances, toilet facilities, lighting levels, seating options, pathways or noise levels.
The typical planning process for a disabled person can involve:
Trawling through lots of websites, hoping each offers snippets of accessibility information hidden deep among pages;
Calling venues directly, often speaking to staff unsure of specifics, putting the pressure on staff to know all of the answers on the spot;
Searching review sites or social media for key buzzwords related to specific access questions;
Piecing together the snippets of information before deciding if its actually worth taking the risk; and
Feeling anxious about arriving somewhere only to face unexpected barriers.
This exhausting process can take hours, if not days, and still lead to uncertainty, anxiety, and exclusion. The emotional toll is heavy: many disabled people ultimately choose not to travel or attend events at all because the risk of inaccessibility is too high.
For major destinations like Liverpool ONE and big events like Radio 1’s Big Weekend, this presented a serious challenge for the city of Liverpool. How do you ensure that disabled visitors feel genuinely welcomed, not just in policy, but in practice?
Liverpool recognised that simply saying “we’re accessible” isn’t enough. The city needed to equip visitors with the information, confidence, and control they deserve, and make accessibility as visible and effortless as any other aspect of trip planning.
The solution
Liverpool ONE Accessibility Guides
In partnership with Liverpool ONE, Sociability undertook one of its most comprehensive and impactful accessibility projects to date. Recognising the importance of accurate, user-friendly information for disabled visitors, our trained mapping team carried out assessments across more than 140 retail and hospitality venues within the Liverpool ONE estate.
Each venue was mapped in person, gathering granular objective detail across key categories including:
Entrance access and alternative options;
Indoor and outdoor areas;
Toilets; and
Visual, hearing and sensory aspects of the space.
This information was then transformed into clear, consistent, and easy-to-navigate digital guides, via the Sociability app with links integrated into Liverpool ONE’s own website for each individual site. See how this looks for Bean Coffee Roasters, here!
What makes this project particularly innovative is the ongoing partnership model, with ongoing support from the Sociability team to review data annually and bespoke dashboards for Liverpool ONE to track and monitor ongoing engagement.
The outcome
140+ venues assessed, including shops, restaurants, cafés, and public facilities;
10,000 place views from users planning visits in advance; Collaborative social media launch spiking engagement by 60%; and
10% of place views generated from the Liverpool ONE website
Liverpool ONE now serves as a flagship destination for inclusive retail and leisure, with a model that can be replicated across other major developments and cities.
“This isn’t just about ticking a box - it’s about giving people the information and confidence they need to feel truly welcome, without having to ask.”
Jennie Berry
Manual Wheelchair User and Business Engagement Lead @ Sociability
The solution
Radio 1’s Big Weekend – Sefton Park & Surrounds
In anticipation of Radio 1’s Big Weekend at Sefton Park, Sociability worked quickly and collaboratively to enhance the accessibility of the surrounding areas - particularly Lark Lane and Penny Lane, two key hospitality hubs for festival goers.
Major events like Big Weekend present a unique challenge for disabled visitors. While the festival site itself may provide some accessibility information, the surrounding streets - where people go to eat, relax, or socialise before and after the event - often provide little to no accessibility information. Sociability stepped in to close that gap.
What we did:
Mapped the accessibility of hospitality venues along Lark Lane and Penny Lane;
Captured granular detail on venue entrances, toilets, indoor and outdoor spaces, lighting and sound levels, and more;
Highlighted inclusive hospitality options for festival goers with varying access needs;
Promoted the guides through traditional marketing methods and community engagement. Read more: Sociability Blog – Big Weekend Liverpool; and
Ensured the information was mobile-friendly and easy to use during the event itself!
With a whirlwind turnaround - from initial conversation to final delivery in 3 weeks! - the guides were live just in time for the festival with early metrics suggesting clear user interest and value.
The outcome
Key outcomes
70 total guide views across Lark Lane and Penny Lane in just over 24 hours (Sat 24 – Sun 25 May)
50 unique users accessed the guides during that time
Most users visited both guides and returned more than once
Users who found the guides used them actively to inform their choices, demonstrating the value of having access to a wide variety of venues in one place
With a release just in time for the festival, we nevertheless saw immediate engagement with the guides, reinforcing the clear need: when accessibility information is made available - even at short notice - disabled visitors will use it, rely on it, and benefit from it.
