Accessibility

We want everyone to feel welcome, comfortable, and included.

As part of our transformation, we’ve made significant improvements so our building is more accessible. From step-free access and inclusive programming to accessible resources, we want every visitor to feel at home.

Getting here

Location: We’re located in Preston’s city centre, on Market Square. The building is fully accessible from our entrance on Lancaster Road, PR1 2PP.

Parking: Your closest Blue Badge parking is on Lancaster Road and nearby streets. You can find a list of accessible parking spaces on the Preston City Council website. https://www.preston.gov.uk/article/1071/Disabled-blue-badge-city-centre-parking

Public Transport: Preston Bus Station (5 min walk) and the railway station (10 mins) both have level routes to The Harris.

Inside The Harris

Step-Free Access: All public areas of The Harris have step-free access and the café is on the ground floor.

Lifts: Our lift provides access to the first floor and second floor, including galleries and exhibitions.

Accessible Toilets: You’ll find accessible toilets on the ground floor and the first floor including a Changing Places facility with a hoist and an adjustable bench on the ground floor.

Seating: There’s always somewhere to sit in our galleries and public spaces.

Guide Dogs/Assistance Animals: Your assistance animal is welcome at The Harris.

Quiet Times

Quiet Times: We’ll be offering lower levels of sensory stimuli, 2pm-5pm Monday afternoons every week.

Inclusive Resources

Hearing Loops: We have three induction loops in the building located at The Flag Market entrance, Lancaster Road entrance and The Harris Cafe. Additionally, there is one portable loop avalible at the welcome desk. Our friendly Visitor Services staff will be on hand to help anyone to connect hearing aids to the loops.

Large Print Guides: We can provide large print guides for our exhibitions and permanent displays (without having to use the websites access facilities).

British Sign Language: We have two full time staff members trained at level 2 British Sign Language.

Accessible Website: Our website works with screen readers, with adjustable text sizes and alt text for images.

Virtual Tour: You can explore The Harris if you can’t get to us.

Bloomberg Connects: Download the Bloomberg Connects App and visit The Harris page.

Events and Activities

We want our events, talks, and workshops to be as inclusive as possible. Where possible, we’ll offer:

• Audio Described events
• BSL interpreted events
• Captioned or subtitled content
• Flexible ticketing and companion places

We’ll list access information for each event on our website.

Get in touch

If you have questions about your visit, need help planning, or need a bit of extra support, we’re here to help.

Email: [email protected]
Phone: 01772 258248

Or speak to one of our friendly team when you arrive.

We’re always learning

Accessibility isn’t a one-off conversation, and we don’t always get it right,  so we welcome feedback from all our visitors. If there’s something we could do better, let us know. Together, we can make The Harris a place for everyone.

Equality and Diversity

Preston City Council manages The Harris and we share the Council’s commitment to fairness, equality and diversity. 

We actively challenge racism, address inequality and injustice and empower those facing discrimination.

There are 5 key areas we are focusing on:

• The Museum, Art and Library collections
• Challenging existing ways of working
• Staffing and volunteers
• The events and activities we programme
• Decision making

What we mean by this is:

The Museum, Art and Library Collections:
We want to explore the collections with you to tell stories that are
important to you. This includes looking at items that need to be
better explained, presented differently and the stories that we
don’t currently tell. We will also work with you to consider the gaps in the collections and decide how we can fill these with art, history and books that are representative of local communities.

Challenge existing ways of working:
Actions speak louder than words. We want to start making significant changes now and will make a plan of action that sets out the things we are going to do. We need to keep talking to you to make sure we are on the right track and to ask you for help and support. We want you to help us to think more proactively and dynamically.

Staffing and volunteers:
We will work to develop confidence, knowledge and skills in  staff and volunteers to tackle inequality and discrimination.We will
do this by providing regular training and encouraging retraining. We will increase diversity by recruiting staff and selecting volunteers taking into consideration lived experience and transferable skills – not just their qualifications and work experience.

The events and activities we programme:
Events and activities need to respond to the cultural needs of
communities, your interests and the challenges that you are
facing. We want to actively support and collaborate with
marginalised artists and communities to ensure our programme is
representative of you.

Decision making:
We will work with you with openness and honesty to make
decisions together, to decide what our public programme looks
like and to make sure the Harris is relevant for the whole
community.

If you have any thoughts or suggestions please contact us.