Top attractions 'ignore' deaf people

Staff at the Tower were described as "very unhelpful"

Deaf people are missing out on London's top attractions because two-out-of-three fail to provide facilities for people with hearing problems, says a new report.

Favourite tourist attractions such as the Tower of London, the Planetarium, Shakespeare's Globe and the National Portrait Gallery were criticised in the report.

Many deaf people were also likely to miss out on Golden Jubilee celebrations as 60% of the sites open to the public for the event are inaccessible, according to the figures.

The report was commissioned by the Royal National Institute for Deaf people (RNID) ahead of a debate on Wednesday which will include Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone.

The Globe advertises facilities on its website

Nationally, 8.7m people suffer from hearing problems.

But museums, art venues, theatres, cinemas and sports facilities act as if they do not exist, said James Strachan, RNID chief executive.

Only 14% of theatre shows have sign language, just 4% have captions, while cinemas rarely add subtitles to English-language films.

No suitable facilities were provided at 68% of leading art venues and 62% of museums.

The RNID sent a profoundly deaf person to visit 23 London attractions.

Even where systems had been introduced to help the deaf, staff not been trained to use it, the survey found.

Staff at the Tower of London were "very unhelpful", the survey found.

More than a million Londoners are effectively excluded from access to sources of education and entertainment

James Strachan, RNID chief executive

There were no sign language tours, no subtitles for videos, no textphone, and no printed information.

A Tower spokeswoman said: "At the moment we do not provide much for the deaf but we are in the middle of an audit surrounding all disabilities.

"We hope that after we gain information from this we will be able to provide more appropriate services."

The National Portrait Gallery (NPG) offered their deaf visitor a large print guide to the gallery before realising this would not be any help.

Lucy Ribeiro, the NPG's access officer, said the organisation was now working with the RNID to increase provision of sign language systems within the gallery.

Shakespeare's Globe advertises facilities for deaf people on its website, but none were available when the RNID turned up and asked.

Many of deaf facilitiesare not advertised

A Globe spokeswoman said they were "surprised and disappointed" by the results.

She said there were very tactile exhibits, induction loops, signed performances and signed tours in the summer.

The show at the Planetarium relies for its effect on an audio commentary but offered no alternative for deaf and hard of hearing people, the survey found.

A Planetarium spokeswoman said an induction loop was fitted and the show was more a visual experience than an aural one.

There were 14 organisations where sound was an important part of the attraction and no alternative for deaf and hard of hearing was provided.

More than half of the attractions that had a loop system installed did not have signage to indicate they had it, while 19 did not have textphone facilities.

Mr Strachan urged the Government and London Mayor Ken Livingstone to take strong action to improve access and services.

"More than a million Londoners are effectively excluded from access to sources of education and entertainment that the majority can take for granted.

"Not only is this unacceptable, it also frequently means the law - the Disability Discrimination Act - is being broken."