Changing Places To Come Up To Scratch For Accessability

The UK tourism industry needs to ‘spend a penny’ to become more accessible, according to latest research.

A new survey of the top 100 tourist attractions found that 19% had fewer than 1 disabled toilet/100 visitors, and over half had fewer than 2 suitable toilets/100 visitors*.

And only 1 of the top 5 venues has a Changing Places facility, for people who need the help of a carer to toilet. Yet over 20% of Britain’s population is registered disabled, with a spending power in excess of £80billion.

“We go to the toilet on average eight times a day, so appropriate toilet facilities are vital for anybody. People make a conscious decision not to visit somewhere if they believe there are not appropriate, clean toilets,” says Robin Tuffley, marketing manager at Clos-o-Mat, the UK’s leading supplier of disabled toileting solutions. “Venues are therefore potentially missing out on a significant number of visitors by not properly catering for disabled visitors- and that includes appropriate toilets, be they standard accessible WCs, wheelchair accessible toilets, or Changing Places facilities.

“Changing Places toilets- which mean a carer has the space and equipment to change their loved one rather than do so on the toilet floor- continue to grow in popularity. More than 600 are now open across the UK- even Morrisons supermarket now has one! The Look Out Discovery Centre in Bracknell Forest won England’s Loo of the Year Award for its Changing Places toilet, and says the facility has a beneficial impact on the venue’s popularity.”

To help venues improve their accessible toilet provision, Clos-o-Mat, has produced white papers- ‘Provision of Accessible Toilets in the Tourism Industry’, and ‘Considerations & Specification of Changing Places accessible toilets’- that cover all relevant and current legislation and “good practice’ design considerations on accessible toilet provision in tourist attractions. The white papers can be downloaded FOC at www.clos-o-mat.com.

Clos-o-Mat is unique in being the only disabled toileting solutions company in the UK with the in-house expertise to offer design advice, supply, installation, commissioning and service/maintenance on Changing Places facilities.

It even offers a complete project management capability to ensure the installed toilet complies with all requirements and Regulations.