The Netherland’s Lack of accessibility legislation excludes wheelchair users from society
- Amber van Kempen & Sophia von Seebach
- May 14
- 9 min read
Centuries-old cobblestones that line the city’s streets, spiraling staircases in pre-war Dutch boutiques, and a beautiful, walking-friendly city center; The Netherlands has hundreds of these picturesque cities, which are internationally praised for their appearance and practicality for pedestrians. Yet one group is consistently isolated from the splendor of this idyllic image: wheelchair users.
The lack of accessibility of Dutch cities can be seen in their streets, public transport, shops, restaurants and even public buildings. Storefronts are often inaccessible due to stairs, high ridges between doorways and entrances, and narrow aisles.
“I think the stores here and the little cafes and the restaurants that you see here - they're really cute and all, but most of the time I can't even enter the store. And if I can enter, then they're quite small and I can’t move around freely,” said Tessa Meijer, 29 year old wheelchair user. “That makes it not welcoming to me.”
Meijer lives in Groningen, and is a project coordinator at Wiel & Deal, a non-profit organization dedicated to raising awareness about accessibility. Meijer worked with a group of researchers from the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, collecting data on what areas of the city are inaccessible. Their findings revealed major hotspots of inaccessibility, specifically in the main bar area of the city.
The project, This Abled City, was led by Dr. Bettina van Hoven. The main accessibility issue identified in Groningen is inaccessibility of public transportation.
“Getting into town is a big barrier,” said Dr. van Hoven. “If you want to go by bus, you only can get one wheelchair in the bus and often people are left by the bus stop - the bus just keeps going - or they stop and say ‘sorry, we can't take you’, or someone doesn't want to pull out the ramp.”
Complaints
Meijer has filed complaints about inaccessibility and bus drivers’ reluctance to offer assistance. “I did it a couple times, but then I didn't get the response that I wanted,” she said. “One time they did follow up and it was all right, but that was one out of thousands of inconveniences with bus rides.”
Meijer said that filing a formal complaint is often a mentally and emotionally laborious task, and does not yield satisfactory results. “It doesn't help me and it doesn't help them,” she said.
Furthermore, Meijer said that retaliation is a concern for her. “Maybe I cannot go with them on the bus if I complain too much, so maybe I should just shut up and just go for the ride,” Meijer said.
However, Gert Veringa, from OV Bureau Groningen en Drenthe, says that people should complain, “especially because leaving someone behind is not tolerated”.
A complaint entails giving the bus company the time, bus line and a short explanation and they will get to work. If the solution does not yield the wanted results or is not offered fast enough, OV Bureau can step in as an intermediary, facilitating communication and applying pressure to reach a solution that fits both parties, says Veringa.
Recently, bus company QBuzz was fined 10,000 euros for having left behind a passenger twice. “To bus companies, that’s a nasty amount of money”, says Veringa If this were to happen again, this fine will increase. “For that amount you can instead finance many training courses”, adds Veringa.
If the passenger feels like they are being discriminated against, Veringa says that people should reach out to the OV Bureau. “This really is not allowed to happen,” he said.
Discrimination centers
For complaints regarding discrimination, Waard Kenniscentrum voor Inclusie is of service. Going off of how many alerts they get based on handicap discrimination, Cayle at Waard indicates that it is not as high as racial discrimination. However, from what they observe the three most frequently occurring things that wheelchair users face is “inaccessible spaces, being rejected at solicitation interviews, and that they are not recognized by other people [as equals].”
The reason Caylee gives for this is “a lot of people don't know what discrimination is”, and if the case goes to court “they still have to prove it happened and that's what makes it so difficult for criminal law.”
“There are 12 grounds on which you are not allowed to trespass in the Netherlands, and that may well be the law, but some people also really don’t care at all,” says Caylee.
To raise awareness and create better preventions, Waard offers workshops that show people how alerts are seen by the law, “what a case looks like, by who it is assessed and how, [...] it could also be that there is more involved than just discrimination.”
Waard is not an authority figure, but they can help point businesses to where they might be violating article 1 of the Dutch constitution. “We can only investigate”, says Caylee. If they find that a place is in real violation of a law, then they go to the police station where both parties can make a statement. Aiming to be as transparent as possible, Waard publishes all their findings and judgements online allowing the public to compare and evaluate their situation and whether they have a case or not.
Hilde van der Burg, a 40 year old wheelchair user who lives in Dwingeloo, echoed the sentiment that lodging formal complaints often feels like more effort than it is worth. She said that all Albert Heijn stores, a supermarket in the Netherlands, have one handicapable self-checkout counter. These checkout counters only differ from others by having an adjustable PIN machine. However it is, in actuality, not accessible because both the PIN machine and screen are too highly situated for most wheelchair users.
van der Burg said that although the employees at this Albert Heijn have petitioned with its headquarters, no changes have been made. “The Albert Heijn in our town wants to change that for me- they want to change it and they can't. It's not allowed from the headquarters of the Albert Heijn- it’s crazy.”
“I'm a disabled person, but I can totally live without any help, and they make it impossible with this policy to let me live totally independent,” said van der Burg.
Albert Heijn did not respond to requests for comment.
The municipalities not taking cues from businesses to improve accessibility and asking people to complain but making it tough to do so, becomes a vicious circle, concludes Caylee.
Awareness
One obstacle regarding the creation of successful accessibility legislation is monument buildings. Monument buildings are buildings which have been deemed historically significant by the Netherland’s municipalities.
In Groningen, many stores, restaurants and bars are located in old monument buildings. “Such buildings cannot be adapted in an instant,” says Sanne Beishuizen, municipality building expert. Changes affecting a building's exterior require permits and municipal approval. Each municipality sets its own strictness for modifications to monument buildings. “Although difficult, it is not impossible. There must be a good plan that explains why, where, what, and how changes will be made,” says Beishuizen.
However, a bigger part of the lack of accessibility is that building standards have largely remained the same for decades. “There's a book for architects from the late 1930s which has the universal standard [for buildings], and all of the measurements are based on the white male, non-disabled body: the heights of tables, the width of entrances,” van Hoven says. “That is used universally in many cities because that is who the city is for.”
Meijer says that making legislation that increases accessibility in building standards will benefit all of Dutch society. “Everyone can get a disability for a short term or for long term, and we need to make it a standard instead of like a byproduct,” she said.
Meeting the guideline
Article 1 in the first chapter of the Dutch constitution states the following: “All who are in the Netherlands are treated equally in equal cases. Discrimination because of religion, belief, political affiliation, race, gender, handicap, sexual orientation or any other ground is not permitted.”
Caylee highlights that this is an “umbrella term” meaning that many laws fall under it. In addition, there are a number of criminal law articles on discrimination. Together, these laws are supposed to protect people with a handicap from indirect and direct discrimination and mistreatment.
However, discrimination is hard to prove, says Caylee. Especially when the Dutch government has mostly decentralized from accessibility regulations, says Wietse Schooltink, personal secretary of the minister for Long-term and Social Care of Netherlands, Vicky Maeijer. Meaning that it does not keep watch over the municipalities or provide them with guidelines to ensure accessibility. This means that the municipalities and businesses must implement changes to make their place more accessible, though with unclear regulations, they can be open to many interpretations.
Another obstacle for people with disabilities began in 2015, when the government decentralized most of its healthcare services, including services for people with disabilities.
“The reasoning behind this was that the local authorities are much better suited to offer tailor made solutions that fit the needs and wants of their communities,” said the press officer of Vicky Maijer, State Secretary for Long-Term and Social Care. Decentralizing these services, however, means the absence of oversight, leaving disabled people vulnerable to discrimination.
The accessibility of buildings is often one of the largest obstacles for wheelchair users and people with disabilities. Gelly Sehat, a senior policy officer at the Ministry of Housing and Spatial Planning, said that new building regulations under the Besluit bouwwerken leefomgeving (Bbl), which was implemented two years ago, guarantee that new buildings will be accessible for people with disabilities.
Herman in ‘t Veen, a wheelchair user and member of Werkgroep Toegankelijk Groningen advises the municipality on accessibility. Working on implementing the UN-handicap treaty, in ‘t Veen sees a major issue: “no hard deadlines which means that, in the end, it's not binding for anybody.” While the Bouwbesluit sets rules for new public buildings and updates every four years, it mainly regulates entrances, leaving interior accessibility unaddressed. Furthermore, because potentially accessible existent buildings do not have to adhere to any new rules, they remain inaccessible. Additionally, some previously accessible buildings have been renovated and made inaccessible, says in ‘t Veen.
For restaurants and bars, customers with a disability would add 15% to the overall revenue, according to an article by Horeca Nederland. Inaccessibility does not invite paying customers with a disability, as well as their friends and relatives ,as they choose outing locations based on accessibility, in ‘t Veen says. For businesses, this domino effect can cause a greater turnover reduction compared to a profit aided by the building's accessibility, explains in ‘t Veen.
Accessibility can be overlooked by house developers who resist stricter rules to maintain creative freedom, effectively excluding people with disabilities. In ‘t Veen questions this logic, “why would they care?" “They want to earn money. And people are willing to pay for it. And in many cases, people with disabilities do not have the highest income. So, if you want to earn money, focus on the people who can pay,” in ‘t Veen provides as a possible reason.
Organizations like the UN-handicap committee try to adapt the Bouwbesluit to adopt more rules that apply to the inside of buildings, but construction companies are lobbying for fewer rules. “It’s a battlefield”, says in ‘t Veen.
The Bbl regulations make this guarantee for new buildings, however these regulations do not require that buildings which were built prior to the Bbl be made more accessible. “As a government, you cannot solve all of the problems,” said Sehat. “You cannot impose people to make their buildings, their dwellings - to have to make it accessible, and it's not our task, I think.”
UN Convention
The UN-handicap Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), was established in 2006 to promote equality for people with disabilities. The Netherlands was among the last EU countries to ratify it in 2016.
The Dutch government follows UNCRPD’s guidelines for accessibility, requiring businesses to make “reasonable adjustments” and improve accessibility gradually. However, vague wording allows businesses to delay changes. The lack of concrete accessibility regulations backed by hard deadlines “makes it difficult for us [advice boards], because you cannot force people to do something,” says in’t Veen. “Reasonable” means there's no obligation to do anything,” says in ‘t Veen.
NGO Ieder(in) launched the action called ‘Our patience is running out!’ on 3 December 2024 to protest the continued lack of action. “We noticed that they [governing bodies] want to talk about it. And they do think it's a shame that we are not more involved in society and that we are talked about as an afterthought. But then again, they don't do anything about it. They hear us but don’t act”, says Tessa.
“Make it known. And make it seen. Because I didn't see it.” – Tessa Meijer
The municipality of Groningen
Two years ago, in 2023, the municipality of Groningen started implementing the ‘New Space Design Guide’, applying its principles to all design and redesign projects. When a heat network is installed, the opportunities to enhance the street and neighborhood are assessed. Sewer replacements included street improvements and added greenery. In the city center, the focus was put in reclaiming public space, removing cars, and transforming parts of the city into easily traversable environments for bikes, pedestrians, and handicapped people. In doing so, the municipality aimed to promote accessibility while creating more space for greenery and social interaction.
These renovations did not go unnoticed. Van Hoven and her co-researchers for This Abled City remark that the entire Grote Markt has changed. “The big issue was the cobblestones because the wheelchairs would get stuck and wheelchair users would experience a lot of back pain,” says van Hoven. A result of removing the cobblestone and making it a car free space had people cycling everywhere. Though that has been resolved in 2025.“I think it was a really positive change in the city that they changed the street services,” says van Hoven.
Due to the limited funds available, not everything is possible. “Staying realistic is important, but looking ahead is as important. Because if you stay realistic, nothing will be changed,” says Veringa commenting on the city’s accessibility.
The municipality of Groningen was asked for a comment, but they did not reply.