Hi, I am a carer for my ex husband and we travel frequently
by car to Scotland. He has MS and uses a
wheelchair. Every time we come back I
say I am going to do something about the dreadful disabled facilities we
encounter at some of the motorway service areas. I am in touch with my MP and her office and
doing research and building up a file with the hope of trying to get things
changed. It would be most helpful to
hear other peoples’ stories of their experiences using motorway facilities.
There are three areas of particular concern (and you could
have others)
1) Disabled parking bays seem to have been slowly taken over
by electric charging points and these are the ones nearest to the
entrance. New disabled spaces are not
being provided to replace those taken.
2) Disabled toilets
can be extremely poor. Welcome Break
seem to only provide one unisex disabled toilet whatever the size of their
outlet and this is shared by baby changing.
Official guidance says ‘wheelchair accessible disabled toilets should
not be used for baby changing’, the reasoning being that this can cause a
considerable wait for people with disabilities.
3) The siting of
toilets is important. Some services
place all their toilets, including disabled, a long way from the entrance
meaning disabled people of all kinds, not just
wheelchair users but the frail and elderly, are made to negotiate through
throngs of people to get to a toilet.
Again, guidance says that ‘the time needed to reach a wheelchair
accessible toilet should be kept to a minimum’.
So, if anyone has any views/concerns/incidents they would
like to share I would love to hear them.
