Letter: The trials of shopping while disabled
Thursday 6th October 2011, 6:04AM BST.
Letter: Further to your recent article on disabled travel, I would like to bring to everyone’s attention that the journey to any shopping centre is just the beginning of the shopping nightmare for disabled shoppers who have to rely on disability scooters or wheelchairs.
I have recently visited Telford town centre, Merry Hill and Cheshire Oaks, as well as smaller shopping centres, and have left disappointed and exhausted after trying to get into and around the shops.
Retailers pack so much merchandise into the space available that there is hardly room for customers to get in at all, especially if they have the misfortune to need the use of disabled equipment.
Shopping centres are usually very good at loaning scooters and wheelchairs but what use are they if you can’t get into the shops to make purchases?
I would like to see every manager of every shop being made to use one of these scooters in their premises so that they are aware of the difficulties. Life as a disab-led person is difficult enou-gh without these added agg- ravations. Shop managers please take note, especially with Christmas coming.
Susan Lewis
Newport
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As much as i sympathise with you, there is next to no chance that shops will not squeeze in goods to sell, covering every ounce of floor space, to satisfy wheelchair/mobility scooters. It’s unfortunate but it’s sadly a reality.
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Its blatant discrimination.
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The main problem for wheelchair users is that apart from supermarkets the gaps between units, hanging rails etc don’t give you room to reach the products. If you are in a wheelchair it makes buying the products very difficult as you can’t reach them or often even see what you want. Surely the shops aught to find a balance that gives them trade from disabled shoppers.
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Wheelchair users could simply just do their shoping online, then they would not have a reason to moan then.
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A comment born of ignorance.
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what can be done has to be limited and within reason, however the so called mobility scooters should be banned in shops and supermarkets and i question whether many users need them.
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Carl
Lets hope you don’t sustain an injury and require a wheelchair for the rest of your life; then you might then find out how much your comment is out of order!!
A solution i find when in shops that are a bit ‘tight’ is to just knock things over…they soon come to see what’s going on; then I explain politely what the problem is !!
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