Across Enfield, disabled people are navigating systems that too often weren’t designed with them in mind. From inaccessible buildings and transport, to rigid services, digital exclusion, and decision-making spaces that overlook lived experience, the barriers are not individual – they are systemic.
That’s why LocalMotion Enfield is proud to launch EDIE – Empowering Disability in Enfield, a new working group focused on understanding and challenging the structures that create inequality for disabled people in our borough.
Why EDIE, and why now?
Disabled people in Enfield have consistently told us that the issues they face are interconnected. Access to housing affects health. Transport affects employment and community life. Benefit systems, social care, and public services often feel fragmented, inflexible, and hard to navigate.
EDIE starts from a simple but powerful principle:
the problem is not disabled people – the problem is the systems around them.
Rather than focusing on “fixing” individuals, EDIE will examine how policies, practices, attitudes, and power structures create barriers, and what needs to change to remove them.
A space led by lived experience
EDIE is a working group within LocalMotion Enfield, rooted in our commitment to social justice, equity, and community-led decision-making. It is a space where disabled people and allies can come together to:
- Share lived experiences safely and collectively
- Identify patterns and systemic issues across Enfield
- Build evidence grounded in real life, not assumptions
- Shape ideas for change that are practical, ambitious, and locally rooted
We recognise that disabled people are not a single group. Experiences differ across impairment, race, class, gender, age, migration status, and caring responsibilities. EDIE will actively work to centre voices that are often excluded, and to challenge ableism alongside other forms of oppression.
From listening to action
EDIE is not just about conversation – it’s about change.
Over time, the group will:
- Highlight gaps and inequalities in local services and infrastructure
- Feed into LocalMotion’s wider campaigns and priorities
- Engage with decision-makers, organisations, and institutions in Enfield
- Support collective advocacy for more accessible, inclusive, and accountable systems
Change doesn’t happen overnight, but it starts when people come together to name what isn’t working – and imagine what could work better.
An invitation
EDIE is at the beginning of its journey. If you are a disabled person living or working in Enfield, or someone who cares about disability justice and systemic change, we invite you to be part of this work – whether by joining the group, sharing experiences, or supporting the wider movement.
Together, we can move beyond tokenism and towards real empowerment.
Contact edie@localmotionenfield.org.uk
EDIE – Empowering Disability in Enfield.
Because access, dignity, and justice should never be optional.
Photography by Kai Images