Tomorrow, Thursday 23rd April 2026, Seema Flower — Founder and Managing Director of Blind Ambition — takes to the stage at the annual SHiFT Conference at the Heart of England Events and Conference Centre in Coventry. She’ll be exploring one of the most overlooked safety and inclusion issues in the highways and utilities sector: what street works actually do to the daily lives of blind and partially sighted people. If you’re attending, we’d love to see you.
What to Expect from Seema’s Session
Seema’s talk — “How Street Works Affect Partially Sighted People” — isn’t a policy overview. It’s a practical, first-person account of what it means to navigate a construction site as a registered blind person who does exactly that, every single day.
The session covers what different eye conditions actually look like from the inside — from tunnel vision to macular degeneration to retinitis pigmentosa — and maps those experiences directly onto the hazards that street works create. The problems aren’t theoretical. They’re barriers at every stage: before works begin, during the disruption, and in the damage that persists long after a site has closed.
Seema also sets out what good genuinely looks like — the behaviours, briefings, and practices that transform a street works site from a hazard into something a blind or partially sighted person can navigate with confidence. That means the Introduce – Ask – Describe – Support framework in action, operative briefings on every shift, and tactile continuity maintained throughout.
A Conference Built for the Industry’s Challenges
The theme for this year’s SHiFT Conference is “Maintaining Focus in a Changing Industry” — and it’s hard to think of a more fitting conversation than the one Seema will be leading.
The Heart of England Events and Conference Centre in Fillongley, Coventry is a venue that sets exactly the right tone for this kind of practical, grounded discussion. Last year’s event brought together 300 delegates from more than 180 companies, with 26 exhibitors from across the sector. That kind of reach matters when the conversation is about changing behaviour at scale — not just within one organisation, but across an entire industry.
Come and Find Us
Our colleague Liz will be at the Blind Ambition stand from the start of the day and will be delighted to talk through everything we offer — from Visual Awareness Training and Safety Stand-Down Days to Train the Trainer programmes and Traffic Management Plan reviews.
Seema will join the stand after her presentation, and will certainly be there throughout the afternoon. If you’d like to have a conversation about accessibility in the fibre and telecoms arena — what it means in practice, how your teams can be better equipped, and what a behaviour-change approach looks like on the ground — come and say hello.
We work with utilities and street works contractors on exactly these challenges. The gap between following the Red Book and running a site that is genuinely safe for disabled people is where most of the real work sits — and it’s where Blind Ambition can make a measurable difference.
The Bigger Picture
“Street works don’t just disrupt traffic. For blind and partially sighted people, they disrupt independence. Every site has the power to either remove a barrier — or create one.”
— Seema Flower, Founder and Managing Director, Blind Ambition
There are over two million blind and partially sighted people in the UK. They use pavements, commute to work, and navigate public space every day. When a street works site removes tactile paving, narrows a footpath, or deploys visual-only signage, that isn’t a minor inconvenience — it’s a barrier to independence that has legal as well as operational consequences.
The Equality Act 2010 applies on the pavement just as much as it does in the office. Building Regulations Part M requires diversion routes to maintain accessibility. The Highways Act makes it a criminal offence to obstruct public use of a footway. Compliance with the Red Book is the floor, not the ceiling.
SHiFT members have the reach and the responsibility to drive change at scale. That starts tomorrow.
About Blind Ambition
Blind Ambition is a disability inclusion and behaviour-change consultancy founded and led by Seema Flower, who is registered blind. We work with organisations across the highways and utilities sector, retail, construction, healthcare, and public sector to embed genuine accessibility into how people think, act, and operate — not just what they know in theory. For enquiries, contact support@blindambition.co.uk or visit blindambition.co.uk.
