Thursday 30 June 2016

Almost but not quite...

I'm at the Nottingham Human Rights Law Centre Summer School this week and we are staying in a Premier Inn in the centre of Nottingham.  I've been given an accessible room, which usually I don't bother with as I can walk the short distances in a hotel room.

The hotel is almost brand new and very comfortable.  It has a wet room with plenty of hand rails.  The basin is a decent size and there is counter space for toiletries and make up.  There's plenty of space to move around.  All in all the architect designed an accessible room that meets all the right standards but doesn't feel like a public toilet.

And then, I suspect, someone with a bit less knowledge came along to fit it out.


There's a shelf unit (with wheelchair height hanging rail) that sticks out into the room making it very difficult to squeeze a wheelchair through.  They should have put hooks on the wall.  


There's a very bulky shower seat in a small but otherwise workable shower area.  It makes it tricky to shower whether or not you're using it.  You can get much smaller ones than this, that take up less space or they could provided a freestanding chair or stool that could be moved out of the way.  

The phenomenon of a building being designed accessible but obstacles being added that reduce accessibility is not limited to hotels.  Shops are really goo at adding free standing displays that block aisles or even the tills!  

Tuesday 7 June 2016

Where did the ramp go?

It's actually reassuring to discover that problems with ramps are not confined to this country.  A friend pointed me in the direction of this article from a local paper in Connecticut, USA, about a perfectly good ramp being moved in a way that made it barely accessible.

I wonder if they thought to move the disabled parking bays as well?

Friday 3 June 2016

I'm at an event today at the Lighthouse in Glasgow and had to take a picture of this symbol they've used in all the signage for their disabled toilets.



I love active wheelchair logos, like the one on the Edinburgh trams I posted about a couple of years ago.  This person is clearly going up a very steep hill!

I'd suggest one small change - maybe it should be at the eye level of a wheelchair user.