Overview

They only had half a star so it registers as a review. I attended a weekend conference here as a powerchair user. It could only be described as degrading and humiliating. The hotel haven’t got a clue about accessibility and have zero desire to learn or improve. They use the age of the building as reason to not provide basic accessibility for powerchair users. They don’t believe in widened doorways (even though many have a glass panel next to them. They don’t understand a personal emergency evacuation plan and don’t put it in place. They refuse to cater for people with coeliac disease. They provided a microwave meal bought from Sainsbury’s served up in the microwave dish. It was inedible. I have no idea how this hotel got 4 stars when they cannot even wipe down an area in a kitchen and make gluten free food (despite being told multiple times I was prepared to accept the risk that they had other products in their kitchen, they said they couldn’t create a clean area and prepare and cook food in cleaned areas/pans etcetera. (Even McDonald’s can manage this!). I therefore had to buy in takeaways whilst there as they wouldn’t prepare anything other than microwave meals from a local supermarket. So access around the hotel is pretty poor. There are no paths up to the hotel suitable for a wheelchair, so if you want to do the 20 minute walk to the city centre, you have to leave by the road (not good if it’s dark). There are powered doors into the entrance and it’s relatively flat, but access stops there. The hotel won’t reserve eg breakfast tables that are specifically easier for a person to access. If tables aren’t available that are accessible it’s pretty much tough. There aren’t tables easily accessible for powerchair users. The door to access the public toilets in reception was too narrow for my powerchair. When we found it by another route it clearly did not comply with any buildings regulations as there was no way a wheelchair user could access it as there wasn’t the turning space to enter at a right angle nor space for a powerchair, let alone turning space or room for a carer. There was an alternative loo in the gym area. This was by the saunas so incredibly hot, required a very technical manoeuvre to access and needed 1-2 people to open doors and move things. They also lock access to this toilet (including when they know someone has only got the use of this one toilet) and won’t keep a staff member available to unlock it (not a radar key, but a screwdriver type thing used to lock disabled peoples access). When it comes to bedrooms there’s not a single wheelchair accessible room with a wet room. There is NOT a single wet room available at the whole of this hotel (the one in the gym is unsafe and wouldn’t meet most wheelchair users requirements). The en suite bathrooms for the ‘accessible’ rooms are so small that when you drive a powerchair in frontwards, there is no access to the toilet and definitely no space to turn. A carer could only help if they are able to climb into very small spaces. The only way to use the toilet as a powerchair user is with the door open. There is also only one grab rail for the toilet on the left in the room we had, the right hand one was too far away to be useful to anyone needing the support. Thankfully it is the left side I need most. If it had been the other way round I wouldn’t have managed at all. The toilet is not raised as advertised, it is normal height loo. The sink whilst it does have some knee space underneath is so big it’s unusable for most wheelchair users. The shower in the accessible room was up a 15-20cm step, there are no grab rails at all. A movable seat was put in the bathroom but this was unstable on the shower bottom so wouldn’t be usable bb most people. The bed was incredibly high, whilst there may have been room to put a hoist underneath, there’s no way a manual wheelchair user could transfer into this bed without a lot of help. As we arrived, a wheelchair user was leaving who said to me ‘it’s very hard here’ and they weren’t wrong. Their chair was much smaller than mine. Overall this was a humiliating and degrading experience that I would suggest other people avoid.

Transport & Parking

They have 2/3 blue badge bays which aren’t enough. They have no markings for transfer space between them. The sign in machine for registering a vehicle is inaccessible to wheelchair users. The reception desk is also inaccessible. The parking area at the front is paved and can therefore be used to deploy a ramp, but a wheelchair user has no access to the path outside.

Access

There is no wheelchair access at this hotel independently. If you have a very small manual chair you may manage some navigation with a lot of help. There are three doors and a lift to navigate between reception and an accessible room. The lifts are also blocked off by doors. So when I went up in the very small lift to our room, I was then trapped in a space with a door I couldn’t exit until my wife had climbed the stairs to help me. The wheelchair accessible rooms do not provide anything to meet the majority of wheelchair users needs. The hotels response is for you to use the accessible loo in the gym. This is a 6.5 minute journey from the room, three doors, lift, outside the main entrance then entering into another part of the building (the doors to enter were so heavy that my strong wife struggled to open them, then through one set of double doors. Then two more non widened doors, then into the widened door for the accessible loo, which is locked by staff, and requires a difficult manoeuvre. When I arrived to this ‘accessible wet room’, there was only one drop down grab bar for the entire shower. The shower seat was underneath the shower controls, which left around 1-2 inches of usable seat and no way to operate the shower when using the seat. The shower was a rainfall style with one handle, so if you managed to operate it whilst using the seat, you would have to sit in cold water whilst it warmed up. It’s also opposite the saunas so incredibly hot and not good for anyone with heat intolerance. In the bar area there’s lots of inaccessible seating. There’s a terrace but no level access and definitely no way most powerchairs could navigate the three level changes in quick succession to get out without grounding in the raised lip. There are no evac chairs by the stairs. When I asked for a PEEP (personal emergency evacuation plan) I was told all staff are trained and know what to do. When I pushed further and asked what information they needed from me, they didn’t need to know anything as they knew what to do. As someone who has been to multiple hotels this was really concerning. I usually have a personal conversation on arrival and discuss what I would like to happen and how they would support this. They also usually have a list of questions eg about whether I can transfer etc, but this hotel had no understanding if this at all. Apparently they have an evac chair locked away. I did not trust that I would be able to exit in an emergency . The plan they gave was that if the fire alarm went off, all their staff would look for the location of the fire and confirm that before they decided which staff would come to help evacuation. They gave us no information about whether there was even a refuge point near our room and we were advised to remain in the room.

Toilets

No loos independently accessible to a wheelchair user. They lock the one in the gym which is the only loo in the whole building with room for a powerchair and transfer to toilet. So if you’re unlucky enough to need the loo when there’s no staff on the reception, then you may not make it to the loo in time. I felt humiliated the entire time I was here with no access to toilets independently. They also had air freshener being released on a timer. Which could effect anyone with a sensitivity or allergy to smells.

Staff

No staff had any disability awareness. Management were just awful. I kept being told they didn’t need wheelchair access, widened doors or wet rooms due to the hotels age. No understanding of a reasonable adjustment, the equality act etc. Given this is a hotel owned by the IHG group, I was appalled at the lack of basic awareness and zero customer care.

Photos