Inclusivity In Exeter: Making Businesses Wheelchair-Friendly and Welcoming

While Exeter has not yet formally declared ambitions to be Britain’s most accessible city, the historic locale in the Southwest certainly has the opportunity to become a leader in disability inclusion. As ageing populations grow and disabled residents vocalise a need for equal access, proactive businesses have begun assessing and improving wheelchair accessibility.

There are many impactful steps companies in Exeter can take to ensure people who depend on wheelchairs feel welcomed. These run the gamut from physical premises and layouts to digital assets and virtual environments to customer service and company culture. Progress requires both systemic and human-centred changes.

The Need for Disability Awareness Staff Training

A critical starting point is providing disability awareness training for any staff or volunteers who interact with the public. Contrary to popular belief, physical accommodations alone do not guarantee a business feels welcoming to disabled customers. Human attitudes and a willingness to provide assistance also play a major role.

Disability awareness training serves multiple functions. Firstly, it educates employees on the various types of disabilities, specific needs associated with them, and preferred terminology when interacting with or referring to those with disabilities. These consist of mobility limitations, hearing and visual impairments, cognitive conditions, neurological disorders, and many other physical, mental, or emotional states requiring accommodation.

The training also brings light to common barriers disabled individuals encounter in establishments unequipped to receive them. Small design oversights frequently impede basic access, like heavy doors without openers, high counters, clutter blocking movement through spaces, and a lack of guided signage to amenities. On the human side, ableist assumptions and attitudes still unconsciously held can make disabled patrons feel stared at or unwelcome, even when unintentional.

With awareness comes an understanding of how to avoid excluding behaviours. Employees learn concrete tactics to help patrons overcome accessibility flaws in the physical space. Something as minor as rearranging table layouts or providing a surrogate signature on receipts demonstrates a willingness to meet halfway. Adaptive technologies, when available, like portable ramps or audio transcription apps, can also be offered. But most importantly, disability training programmes teach sensitivity when interacting with and speaking about disabled persons. Terminology recommendations help workers refer appropriately to disabilities and avoid relying on stereotypes. Overall, these learnings equip staff to acknowledge and uplift the dignity of all.

Upgrading Physical Spaces for Accessibility

While informed and compassionate staff help wheelchair users feel welcome, equal access fundamentally requires environments designed for varying mobility. For context, standard wheelchairs measure around 25” wide and 43” long when occupied. Mobility scooters and powered chairs run even larger. Doors, hallways, aisles, and floor spaces must provide adequate clearances to manoeuvre such equipment.

Thankfully, techniques for optimising physical spaces have been well-defined through decades of research and guidelines. Upgrades businesses in Exeter should consider include:

• Installing wide entrance ramps with minimal slope
• Widening interior doors to 34” clearance or more
• Ensuring at least 60” diameter turning radius in rooms
• Maintaining 36” wide halls and pathways between furniture
• Installing well-marked wheelchair lifts or elevators when facilities have multiple floors

Beyond these fundamentals, additions like handrails beside any ascents or descents, high-contrast markings along floor-level hazards, automatic door openers, lowered service counters, and adjustable seating enables easier navigation. Storage rooms and supply closets should uphold the “first-in, last-out” principle so rarely accessed items do not block more routine passes through. Simple wayfinding signage placed at seated eye level assists in independently finding exits or amenities like all-gender accessible toilet rooms.

For businesses with onsite visitor parking, reserving wider spaces closest to entrances for disabled drivers guarantees convenient entry for wheelchair and mobility aid users. Clear signposts help distinguish designated areas so non-disabled patrons do not mistakenly occupy them.

Adjustments within restroom facilities also greatly impact experiences. To properly accommodate wheeled mobility devices, guidelines call for widened stall doors, removable under-sink pipe covers, sink rim heights low enough to reach from a seated position, lever-style taps operable with a closed fist, lowered mirrors and coat hooks, and reinforced grab bars near toilets and inside transfer showers. These facilities assure restroom use with independence and dignity.

Digital Accessibility in the Virtual Landscape

While the above physical accommodations focus on brick-and-mortar sites, modern life flows increasingly through digital landscapes like websites, apps, kiosks, and IoT ecosystems. Their intangible nature unfortunately leads developers to overlook whether technical infrastructure bars disabled individuals, particularly those with vision, hearing, cognitive, learning, or motor impairments, from accessing information or completing tasks.

Thankfully, regulations apply web accessibility standards that organisations must meet. Most pitfalls are traced back to basic oversights:

• Text size and colours lacking enough contrast to be visible
• Keyboard controls missing, so sites can only be navigated by mouse
• Links, buttons, and form fields unlabelled for screen readers
• Videos hosted without captions for deaf viewers
• Layouts misusing heading tags or markup elements hinder navigation
• Flashing imagery that triggers seizures

Remediating these gaps begins with running website audits using freely available online tools to catch standard violations. Code refactoring and some interface updating often resolve problems, along with instituting internal processes going forward requiring accessibility reviews before launch.

Local Transportation for All

Widespread access relies not just on inclusive businesses but connecting infrastructure across a city. While buses, trains, ferries, and other mass transit modes often accommodate wheelchairs to reasonable capacity, booking in advance is required. Private transport fills a crucial niche by offering on-demand movement. Yet the majority of rideshare vehicles and taxi cabs remain incompatible with mobility aids. Even advertised accessible vehicles frequently fall short of adequately serving wheelchair users except through uncomfortable compromises.

Thankfully, Exeter transportation providers can correct this mobility gap by committing to purpose-built wheelchair-accessible vehicles (WAVs). These modern WAVs feature widened side-loading doors or extendable ramps supporting over 300kg. Custom interiors include lowered floors, increased manoeuvring space between seats, and built-in wheelchair anchoring systems meeting ISO-10542 safety standards during transport.

For drivers seeking wheelchair accessible taxis, online dealers can help with both new and used options. The Peugeot Premier, Flexilite Minibus and Ford Journey demonstrate full taxi conformity packaged with excellent accessibility and each makes an excellent wheelchair accessible taxi for sale. Drivers simply need to undergo quick training on properly assisting wheelchair-using passengers with entering vehicles safely after procurement.

As Exeter transportation firms upgrade with enhanced wheelchair accessible offerings, they not only capture revenue from an underserved demographic but activate advocacy from disability communities when publicly viewed as diversity champions increasing mobility access for all. The compounding goodwill and expanded ridership make the endeavour profitable on multiple fronts.

A Collective Effort for Progress

There are certainly costs involved with any accessibility upgrades. However, businesses that lean into inclusivity position themselves for the future while filling a societal need. Minor reasonable accommodations open doors to an underserved community eager to support disability-friendly establishments with their patronage. Constructing wheelchair ramps, offering disability awareness staff training, and meeting website accessibility standards make for worthy investments.

On this journey, no single business must shoulder the burden alone. Comprehensive change requires collective action across the public and private sectors. However, each individual improvement across Exeter brings the city closer to accessibility for all residents. Prioritising wheelchair access serves as a rising tide to lift more of the community.

As momentum around disability inclusion accelerates globally, Exeter has the opportunity to emerge as a leader in equal access by proactively removing barriers for wheelchair users across transportation, economics, recreation, healthcare and civic life. Though long marginalised, Britain’s disabled citizens deserve welcoming places to thrive as integral threads of our shared social fabric. Constructive strides toward accessibility ultimately enable Exeter to actualise values of compassion and dignity.