EAT. DRINK. SLEEP April 2017
OPEN YOUR ARMS TO ACCESSIBILITY When you are planning or designing from scratch or for a refurbishment, take a moment to welcome accessibility by opening your arms. That gesture adds more than enough space onto a Regulatory unisex wheelchair-accessible toilet to enable it to accommodate the user, up to two carers, plus an adult-sized changing bench and hoist. That opens the venue to potentially up to 15million people* for whom a conventional wheelchair-accessible toilet isn’t suitable, who need a bench and/or hoist, (Space to Change) “Just 160cm x 200cm: that’s all the space we’re talking about,” says Kelvin Grimes, away from home accessible toilet project manager @ Clos-o-Mat. “Add that onto the 220cm x 200cm required for a unisex wheelchair-accessible toilet, add a changing bench and hoist, and you enable thousands of people who need extra space, or equipment, to spend timeand money- at the retail outlet, leisure attraction, cinema… “Without this, people who need the space, or equipment, either have to sit in soiled underwear, nappies, lie on the floor to be changed, or cut their trip short and go home. Or they go to venues that DO have suitable toilets, and spend their time, and money there.” * potential users of accessible toilets with adult-sized changing bench and hoist: • 1.5m wheelchair users • 6.5 million people who have either bladder or bowel incontinence • 1.5million people with a learning disability • 1.2million people living with stroke • 62,000
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Adds Robin Tuffley, marketing manager at Clos-o-Mat, “Building Regulations state that where space is limited, then a unisex wheelchairaccessible toilet is the one WC facility that should be provided. In an ideal world, the full ambit of toilet facilities would be provided- male, female, baby change, wheelchair-accessible with left and right hand transfer, and a Changing Places+ facility. But it’s not an ideal world. Space costs. Yet almost 20% of the UK population is disabled. They spend £80billion a year! So adding 310cm2 to a toilet and providing the extra equipment is a cost-effective use of floorspace, in that it opens the door to almost everybody.” A Space to Change toilet has been developed by campaigners for toilet facilities with an adult-sized changing bench and hoist, as a compromise where there isn’t the space for a full, additional Changing Places toilet facility. A 7.5m2 Space to Change builds on the conventional, Regulatory unisex wheelchair-accessible toilet, further accommodating an adult sized changing bench and hoist. amputees • 30,000 people with cerebral palsy • 13,000 people with acquired brain injuries • 8,500 people with multiple sclerosis • 500 people with motor neurone disease • 8,000 people with spina bifida • 20,000 people with a stoma • 3.8million adults morbidly obese
Clos-o-Mat is the only UK company fully equipped, in-house, to provide the resource necessary to provide appropriate disabled changing toilets. It can provide design advice, supply, install, commission, and then service & maintain the facility. It can provide full project management. It can train staff in the equipment so they can help customers. Full details of the Space To Change concept can be found at www.clos-o-mat.com and the Firefly Friends Community. Clos-o-Mat’s website also includes full support data, including white papers, CAD blocks, video, technical specifications and typical layouts. Uniquely, Clos-o-Mat offers, in-house, a full support service, encompassing site surveys, design advice, supply, installation, commissioning and subsequent service & maintenance.
+ A Changing Places toilet is a bigger version of Space to Change, being according to British Standards, 12m2, with an adult-sized heightadjustable changing bench, ceiling track hoist, privacy screen, and is provided IN ADDITION To other wheelchair-accessible toilets.