Chris's Blog - Good n Bad Disabled Access in Thanet Shops, Pubs and Restaurants.

Since my daughter was told by the shopkeeper of the Margate pet shop Paw Prince, that disabled wheelchair users were not wanted in her shop, it has brought to the forefront of my mind that some other services in the Thanet towns of Margate, Ramsgate and Broadstairs in Kent, have shown little or no interest in providing wheelchair access into their premises for my daughter  or when inside she encounters any obstructions, they turned a blind eye to her difficulty.

Following a complaint about the actions of the Margate pet shop owner that I sent to the Equality & Human Rights Commission (EHRC), they emailed back to me a list of four choices that a service provider has when it comes to overcoming a physical feature on their premises as quoted in Part 3 of the Equality Act 2010.
The service provider can either: remove the feature altogether, alter it in some way, provide a means of avoiding it; or provide the service by an alternative method The EHRC also added that it is better for an organisation to look at removing or altering the physical feature or finding a way of avoiding it (such as replacing steps with a ramp or, if it is reasonable for it to do this, a lift).
I now have a better understanding of the UK law and how it is designed to "eliminate disability discrimination to ensure that everyone has a fair chance to participate in society", I am using my blog site to inform disabled people and their families and friends, about premises that in our experience, cause difficulties for the disabled. I'll try to describe our experiences (good and bad), in Thanet shops, pubs, restaurants etc. that too often fail to "make a reasonable adjustment without justification to the physical features of their premises" .  

• Paw Prince pet shop in Margate Kent, has been our worst experience of disability discrimination to date since my daughter's severe stroke a couple of years ago left her paralysed down her right side and a permanent wheelchair user, ... this shopkeeper said that she "does not want wheelchairs coming into her shop" ! But if you've read my previous blog (Tuesday, 30 August 2011) you will already know about this encounter.
• The Royal pub/restaurant at Harbour Parade in Ramsgate, caused an awkward experience for my daughter when she went to the Royal for lunch with my husband and myself. The weather was good so we would have been quite happy to sit outside and eat our meal but all the pavement tables were occupied, so we thought we could go inside to eat our lunch (all the tables inside were empty). There are two doors at the front, unfortunately both the doors have one or more steps up, so I popped into the Royal and asked a bartender if there was a disabled entrance, I was told that there wasn't one. I then asked for a wheelchair ramp to go over the steps, the bartender said she didn't know if they had any and proceeded to ask several other members of staff and the answer came back as ... "no", the Royal doesn't have a ramp for wheelchair access. I went outside where my daughter and husband were waiting and told them that we couldn't go in because of the wheelchair. Some male customers who were smoking outside wanted to try and help us by lifting my daughter in her powered wheelchair over the step, but as the wheelchair weighs 93kg, it was impossible and my daughter felt embarrassed with the attention, so we thanked the men for their help and decided to leave and take our custom elsewhere.
• The Turner Centre has level disabled access into the actual building and my daughter in her powered wheelchair, had no problem driving up the zig zag slope to the entrance but my husband who is also disabled and walks with the support of a stick, found the extremely long walk up the slope, very arduous and painful. However, my daughter's problem came before we reached the zig zag slope, when we drove into the car park at the rear of the museum we surprised to find a tiny car park just for disabled parking only. After waiting 25 minutes for a vacant parking space, we parked the car and proceeded with my daughter in her wheelchair towards the front of the Turner Centre, only to find that there was no dropped curb for wheelchair access onto the pavement from the purpose-built disabled car park, which meant that she had to drive her wheelchair along the middle of the car park access road, bypassing cars queueing at the red traffic light, she then had to turn left across the front of those cars, to find the dropped curb facing out towards the middle of the crossroads. A very dangerous place to be when the traffic lights change to green!                                                                      When we eventually got into in the Turner Centre, we asked why there wasn't a dropped curb for wheelchairs to get onto the pavement directly from the disabled car park and were told that the dropped curb had been omitted during the building work, but there had been a wooden ramp placed at the curb for wheelchair access onto the pavement ..but it had been stolen!! 
• The ASK restaurant at Westwood Cross has good level access for wheelchairs, the staff are happy to help with doors or misplaced chairs and in general they give a great service for disabled customers. Unfortunately, the disabled user's toilet has two very large bins standing on the floor space and leaves no room for turning a wheelchair.**.                                                                                There are other establishments and not just in Thanet, where disabled toilets often double as store cupboards for broken chairs, buckets, caution-cones and other items of cleaning equipment, making the access and turning a wheelchair very tricky.                      
• The David Copperfield restaurant in Broadstairs near to Asda, gave us a very pleasant experience for lunching with excellent wheelchair access and the staff are very helpful in providing the most comfortable table available for wheelchair access and the disabled toilet access is good.***
• The Ambrette restaurant in Margate provides a wonderful experience for lunching with good wheelchair access and staff that go out of their way to provide the most comfortable table that they have available. The restaurant doors can be a little tricky for a wheelchair, but the staff  have always been ready to help.  Their disabled toilet is excellent with no obstructions and is a decent size for turning in a  wheelchair.***
• Comfort Inn restaurant in Ramsgate has good disabled access into the restaurant and there is plenty of space for wheelchairs to move through the restaurant.  The food is good value for money and there are wonderful views across the English Channel ..BUT there are NO disabled toilets at all!   One of the four toilet cubicles has a right hand rail ... but it doesn't pull down as it is obstructed by the toilet roll holder!  It is very difficult for a wheelchair user to access the toilet area and impossible for a wheelchair user to use the toilet if, on their own!
• Broadstairs Tandoori is Nepalese, Gurkha owned and run restaurant in Broadstairs town which has good flat access into the restaurant and the staff could not be more helpful to ensure that the wheelchair user is comfortable in their restaurant, even supplying wooden blocks to place under the table legs should extra height be required to allow the wheelchair to be positioned comfortably under the table. There is no disabled toilet, however, the toilet is easily accessed in a wheelchair but as there is no turning space, you have to reverse out. The food is excellent and reasonably priced. ***