Overview

This is an excellent bookshop, but has several annoying accessibility barriers for wheelchair user.

Transport & Parking

Bus routes 9, 14, 23 and 38 serve the bus stop right outside the shop. Green Park tube station is step-free and just a few blocks away. But check before you travel - the lifts at Green Park are notoriously and infuriatingly unreliable.

Access

To get into main entrance of this Waterstones flagship bookshop in Piccadilly, you would have to descend a small flight of steps. A platform lift has been provided alongside these steps for anyone with wheels or with mobility difficulties. However this lift is very difficult to use: (i) the upper level door has no spring so it is often left dangling open, which means that you cannot call the lift from the lower level. (ii) the lower level door spring is so powerful that it takes the strength of an olympic athlete to open it, which makes it extremely difficult to use, especially while simultaneously trying to propel yourself into or out of the lift. At the back entrance staff will deploy a portable ramp for you to enter the shop, but there is no doorbell or other way of alerting staff to your presence outside and your need for a ramp. So access to the back entrance is difficult. There are good but unreliable lifts between the floors - and they are terribly slow, their entrances are horribly narrow, and staff pile up stuff around the outside of the lifts, making it hard to get in and out if you're using a wheelchair. The display tables are often much too close together to allow a wheelchair to pass between them. This makes navigation around the shop really difficult, and some areas simply cannot be reached in a wheelchair because of the tiny gaps between tables obstructing the way.

Toilets

There is a spacious and comfortable accessible toilet on the 5th floor, adjoining the bar/restaurant. There is also a less spacious but usable accessible toilet in the basement. It has one flaw: staff keep leaving a huge bin in the wheelchair transfer area, even though there are clear signs telling them NOT to do this, NOT to obstruct the wheelchair transfer area with bins. This is really obtuse and unhelpful and very annoying.

Staff

Lovely staff, always friendly and helpful. If you can't reach a book on a high shelf, they will be delighted to help. Two stars lost because they cram the display tables much too close together, making it very hard for a wheelchair user to pass between them; because they don't keep the platform lift doors in usable working order; and because they persist in placing a large bin in the wheelchair transfer area of the basement accessible toilet.

Anything else you wish to tell us?

This is an excellent bookshop, but the multiple barriers for wheelchair users make it less attractive. Currently, I dislike shopping there. The following things would make a much better experience for wheelchair users, and would make me spend much more money at this bookshop, rather than resorting to a famous online bookshop: (1) Keep the lift at the front entrance in reliable good working order, and repair it PROMPTLY if it breaks down. Fix the doors so that they close by themselves and are easier to open. (2) Don't obstruct the entrances to the between-floors lifts with clutter (3) Put a doorbell at the back entrance so that wheelchair users can alert staff to their need for a manual ramp (4) Train staff to listen for, recognise, and respond to the doorbell (5) Leave adequate space around display tables so that wheelchair users can access all areas of the shop. (6) DO NOT put any sort of bin in the wheelchair transfer area of accessible toilets!

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