Teens assess city’s wheelchair access
Children's Express reporters Mairead Duffy, 15, PJ Hart, 15, Margaruite McNeill, 15, Michael Leathem, 14, equipped with wheelchairs from the Red Cross join Fleming Fulton student Chris Logan to check out wheel chair accessibility for young people in Belfast City centre shops.
| The book racks on the ground floor were close together and loads of books were piled on the floor. I ran over books quite a few times. |
10:00am Chris, 17 arrived by taxi to Children's Express offices in Rosemary Street. Getting in and out of the taxi was a breeze, although the same cannot be said for the lift up to CE offices. People operating manual wheelchairs found it easy enough to fit into the lift but it was not really big enough for Chris's automatic wheelchair.
10:30am PJ and Mairead got instructions from Chris on how to use a wheel chair and what to avoid in the street (dog dirt was high on the list). PJ soon complained of sore hands. Mairead was worried about how people might look at her.
11:00am Negotiate lift. Out onto a pedestrian area. Chris successfully avoided people, drains and loose paving stones. Using a manual wheelchair is hard work and PJ found it difficult to avoid the drain channels. The going got easier once inside the Donegal Street Arcade. People steered clear of wheelchair users.
11:30am Mairead, PJ and Chris made their way to HMV. Mairead found staff helpful. They were willing to get those CDs that were on the higher racks and unreachable for wheelchair users. PJ's only complaint was that he found it really difficult to get to the poster section because the aisle was not wide enough. Chris had no mission but he did not want to buy any music posters that day.
11:45am Back to the street. Crossing Royal Avenue was easy because of the gradual sloped pavements. More music shopping - this time in Virgin Megastore. The bottom floor was easy to negotiate; the aisles are wide and the short-hair carpeted floor area made manual wheelchair manoeuvrability less strenuous.
To check out videos on the next floor, a member of staff had to be informed. You had to travel to the next building and enter through another door, though they offered to get us any videos we might want. Staff were more than willing to accommodate our wheelchair users, none of whom could face the palaver and decided to leave without looking at videos.
12:00pm Loads of shoppers are milling around Castle Court; most of them gave way to wheelchairs but some people did seem oblivious to the fact that a wheelchair user has to make a lot of effort to stop and start or even might be in a hurry and took ages to make space. The shopping centre's glass elevators were roomy and easy to use. Thumbs up.
| | Facts and figures | | Some 14,600 children under 16 in Northern Ireland are disabled. | | The Disability Discrimination Act, which applies to Northern Ireland became law in 1995 and aims to end the discrimination which many disabled people face. | | Since October 1, 1999 service providers, such as businesses and organisations have had to make reasonable adjustments for disabled people, such as providing extra help or making changes to the way they provide their services. | | From 2004 service providers will have to consider making reasonable adjustments to the physical features of their premises to overcome physical barriers to access. | |
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12:30pm Team rendezvous on the top floor of the shopping centre outside TKMAX. Mairead said "Don't even try to go in there. The clothes racks are all over the place and there is not room to manoeuvre. I knocked loads of stuff off the rails by accident."
Chris looked around Easons, although he said that all the shelves are close together, it could have been easier for me. Bargain Books was bad because there was a great big shelf right in the middle and people werecrowding around them, so I couldn't get in there.
At first, PJ shied from the Gadget Shop because it was so full but gathering courage he joined the throng and said: "It was difficult as the corners were tight but people moved over for me."
1:00pm Out to the street again to make our final shopping call to Waterstones before lunch. Staff could not have been more friendly but PJ said: "Waterstones was a nightmare. There was absolutely no disabled access for getting upstairs (where half the shop is). The book racks on the ground floor were close together and loads of books were piled on the floor. I ran over books quite a few times."
Staff did offer to get any books we wanted from the other floors but there was no way to get up there to do a little browsing. Waterstones assured us they are eager to resolve this problem. Waterstones, to their credit, offer a good-sized toilet which doubles as a mother and baby room, too.
1:15pm Tummies rumbling - food was paramount. Our wheelchair users felt that they had to travel half way round the world to cross some streets because kerbs were too high to get down and get up onto the other side of the street. McDonald's was crowded. There is a bathroom available on the ground floor but no lift to the second floor.
Decided to look for somewhere a little less hectic and noisy. Several smaller cafes were struck off the lunch list because the doorsteps are too high or the doorways and aisles too narrow to get through.
Finally we settled on Blinkers, where friendly staff showed us to a table. "It was fine, it was just hard getting in through the door but apart from that it was easy. It could have been worse elsewhere," Chris said.
2:00pm Back to the office. "People did not pay too much attention to us, so maybe most people see others who are in a wheelchair as normal now," said Marguerite. "Only little kids stared at me," said Chris.
It was time for Chris to go home. The taxi arrives and the driver says he has been trained how to get wheelchair users on board but this is his first time actually doing it. Seat-belted up, Chris waves good-bye.
Overall, the team thought accessibility in Belfast to the types of places young wheelchairs users may want to visit was good but looked forward to changes which will make some shops and restaurants easier to get to and easier to get around once inside.
About the team
This article was produced by Mairead Duffy, 15, PJ Hart, 15, Margaruite McNeill, 15, Michael Leathem, 14. It was published in the News Letter in Northern Ireland.
