Attract More Customers by Creating a, ‘Space to Change’.

Posted by Clos-o-Mat on 26th September 2016 Additional Needs, Campaigns, Stories by Firefly

Attract More Customers by Creating a, ‘Space to Change’.

Research shows that in an average business, 20% of its customers will have a disability.

This group of people spend £80 billion a year.

Many of the 5 million people with special needs, can’t spend their money where they want to because there is no suitable toilet for them to use.

Restaurants, coffee shops, cinemas, department stores, shopping centres, supermarkets may provide a wheelchair accessibile toilet but without vital equipment including a hoist and changing bench these toilets are useless to a large group of people.

However, many wheelchair-accessible toilets in these locations already have the space needed - just 7.5 square metres to accommodate a hoist and changing bench.

“Hundreds of thousands of adults and children with disabilities need a carer to help them with their toilet requirements, and often also need equipment - a changing bench and hoist,” explains campaigner Samantha Buck.

“Even in my local town, I have been surprised to realise how many wheelchair-accessible toilets already have that space.

We just need them to also have a bench and hoist added: the changing bench is less than 2 metres long, and a ceiling track hoist takes up no space at all.

“In an ideal world, we’d like a full assisted accessible - Changing Places - toilet in addition to the standard wheelchair accessible facility, but that takes up an extra 12 square metres under British Standards.

Making better use of existing facilities, and turning them into Space to Change toilets by including an adult-sized changing bench and hoist is an acceptable compromise, which means families like mine can spend time doing what ‘normal’ families do - shopping, having a meal together, going to the cinema.”

Space to Change was developed by campaigners and leading disabled toilet solutions company Clos-o-Mat to bridge the gap between conventional wheelchair-accessible (Document M type) toilets and full-specification Changing Places facilities, to provide an acceptable alternative where space and/or cost is a limiting factor.

To join the Space to Change campaign and champion the need for benches and hoists to be installed in existing wheelchair accessible toilets get in touch!

Full details of the Space To Change concept, and the larger Changing Places assisted accessible toilet, can be found at www.clos-o-mat.com.

Clos-o-Mat’s website also includes full support data, including white papers, CAD blocks, video, technical specifications and typical layouts.

Uniquely, Clos-o-Mat offers, in-house, a full support service, encompassing site surveys, design advice, supply, installation, commissioning and subsequent service & maintenance.