For someone who cannot see a barrier or easily follow a pavement diversion, passing a street works site can become a question of safety and independence. Helping workers understand that experience has earned Seema Flower a Department for Transport award.
Flower, who has been registered blind since the age of nine, received the Outstanding Contribution (Private Sector) Award at the Department for Transport Special Recognition Awards 2026.
The founder and managing director of Blind Ambition was presented with the award on Wednesday 7 October at the Winter Gardens in Blackpool, during the Strictly Highways conference.
Judges described her as “an inspirational advocate and passionate disability rights champion”, recognising the knowledge and practical guidance she has shared with contractors, industry bodies and professionals across the street works sector.
For Flower, the work draws on lived experience as well as more than 25 years in disability and visual awareness. Through Blind Ambition, she helps people responsible for road and pavement works consider what their sites feel like to those navigating them with a disability.
A barrier, ramp or sign may seem a small part of a construction job. Its positioning can determine whether a blind or partially sighted person, wheelchair user or another disabled pedestrian can continue their journey safely and independently.
Her training brings those consequences into focus. Operatives, supervisors and planners wear simulation spectacles designed to replicate different eye conditions, walk through mock sites and practise situations they may encounter on the street.
“Inclusion in street works isn’t a specialist add-on — it’s fundamental to community trust,” Flower said. “When we design with blind and partially sighted people in mind, we design better streets for everyone.”
Blind Ambition has delivered this work with organisations including National Grid, Severn Trent Water, Cadent Gas, Openreach and Circet. The organisation says it also presented to 3,000 National Grid colleagues at the company’s safety conferences this year.
The judges recognised Flower’s contribution to HAUC(UK), Street Works UK and the Joint Authorities Group, among others. But in accepting the recognition, she placed the emphasis on the people making changes on the ground.
“This award belongs to every operative and supervisor who has changed the way they set up a site because they now understand what it means for the person walking past it,” she said. “That is where the change happens.”
Her wider disability awareness work has reached medical students, corporate teams, educational staff and young people in custody. She has also worked alongside organisations including the RNIB, Thomas Pocklington Trust, Guide Dogs and Shaw Trust, with a focus on challenging inequality and reducing social isolation.
Previous recognition includes the London Venus Award for Inspirational Woman of the Year in 2018 and an Outstanding Leadership Award at the CXO 2.0 Conference in Dubai in 2024.
The latest award, a new category for 2026 sponsored by Multevo, recognises a lasting contribution to highways through collaboration, innovation and work beyond an individual’s role. The awards are organised by LCRIG on behalf of the Department for Transport and are now in their seventh year.
At the heart of Flower’s work is an everyday freedom: being able to get where you need to go. Her message to street works teams is that the decisions they make can help protect it.
