Charity slams pub trade for failing to attract disabled customers

Related tags Disabled people Disability

Disabled charity John Grooms has accused the pub trade of failing to make enough effort to attract disabled customers. The charity sent out a team of...

Disabled charity John Grooms has accused the pub trade of failing to make enough effort to attract disabled customers.

The charity sent out a team of undercover representatives to monitor pub premises and found that many disabled people were unable to enter pubs because of inadequate street access.

It also concluded that in many pubs the entrances to disabled toilets were obstructed, counters were too high for disabled people to order drinks and tables could not accommodate wheelchairs.

John Grooms has launched a new campaign called "Disability! Take another look" which aims to make businesses think about their attitudes towards physically disabled people and to make premises more disabled-friendly.

Mike Shaw, chief executive of John Grooms, said: "I hope our findings will make pubs look again at their facilities for disabled people. There are 8.3m disabled people in the UK and taking simple measures such as installing a wheelchair ramp at the door makes good business sense."

Although the charity believes that a lot more work needs to be done to make pubs more accessible it was not all bad news for the trade.

The charity said that pub staff displayed a good level of awareness and were very helpful to disabled customers. It picked out the Six Continents Toby Carvery site in Borehamwood, North London, as being particularly good and helpful to disabled customers.

A spokeswoman for Six Continents said: "As a company Six Continents Retail is progressing the roll-out of improved disabled facilities which will be completed by 2004."

Pubs are already being urged to act now to make their premises accessible to disabled people as required under the new Disability Discrimination Act which comes into force in October 2004.

All businesses have to make "reasonable adjustments" to ensure their premises are accessible or they may face prosecution. This can mean anything from installing ramps and disabled toilets to providing something as simple as hearing loops for the deaf.