Forum Brief: Disabled access

Leisure services will need to do a lot more to convince disabled people that they will be ready for the 1st October deadline, warned the Disability Rights Commission (DRC) on the first day of the annual Pub and Bar convention at Olympia.

Forum Response: Disability Rights Commission

Bert Massie, chairman of the DRC said:"With just over six months to go before equal access laws come into force, pubs and bars need seriously to consider the adjustments they can make to their premises in order to welcome their disabled customers.

"Accessible business is good business. Disabled people have an annual spending power of £50 billion, without taking into account their friends and families who will also be influenced by their choices. Pubs and bars should tap into this goldmine."

Forum Response: Disabilities Trust

A spokesperson for the Disabilities Trust told ePolitix.com: "As a major national service provider, The Disabilities Trust is fully behind the DRC's latest message for business. Its no longer acceptable that people with disabilities should be excluded from so many of our societies basic amenities, access to which the rest of us take for granted. Come October all that will have to change. While we can appreciate that it may entail extra expense, businesses are not being required to make huge and very costly alterations, rather what are deemed 'reasonable' adjustments. In 2004, that surely is not too much to ask."