Making Your Business Wheelchair Accessible

Opening your business to disabled visitors is universally beneficial. Greater accessibility means more customers, clients, or guests – bringing financial benefits to your company and making disabled visitors feel welcome.

One of the most denied demographics are wheelchair users. Despite government regulations, many shops, restaurants, barbers, pubs, and other premises are inaccessible to wheelchair, scooter, and rollator users.

The reasons for this are often understandable – the cost of accessible equipment and building modifications can be prohibitive.

At Ramps.co.uk, we aim to make it as quick and easy as possible to open your business up to the disabled community.

Making your business more inclusive signals to potential customers that your business is welcoming to all and run with consideration for people’s needs.

So, let’s look at what we can do to improve the accessibility of your business:

Entrance and Fire Exit Access

It’s not just the entrances that should be accessible, but the fire exits too. Unfortunately, this is sometimes not the case.

If there is not enough space to install a semi-permanent ramp, be sure to keep a portable ramp on standby. Whether folding or non-folding, either option on Ramps.co.uk is compact and easy to fit into small spaces, such as a cupboard for use in emergencies.

If there is space, a semi-permanent ramp may be your preferred option. Our semi-permanent Excellent Systems ramp kits are more affordable than permanent concrete alternatives. They can also be removed when required.

A semi-permanent ramp would provide access to visitors into your business, so you wouldn’t need to get your portable ramp out of its storage area. This would allow customers, guests, clients, or whoever else wishes to enter your business to do so while you are not around to help.

Interior Space and Flooring

Inside a business, wheelchair users should have enough room to turn 360°. They should not be forced to reverse at any point and travel in a direction they can’t see.

The flooring of your business preferably ought to be hard – although stiff-haired carpets are fine too.

Wherever thresholds appear, use QuickRamps on one or both sides to smooth them over, allowing wheelchair and scooter users to bypass them easily.

For larger thresholds and single steps, use Excellent Systems ramp kits to enable wheeled visitors to overcome them.

Additional Access Features

While not directly related to wheelchair users, handrails are a great way to make your business disability friendly. They give visitors who are uneasy on their feet something to hold onto. They are also a good and often essential safety feature at dangerous points such as steep steps, flights of stairs, and areas that, for whatever reason, are difficult to navigate.

Step Units are also an excellent – though of course non-wheelchair related – feature to have at points where mobility challenged visitors may struggle with high pre-existing steps.

Do All Businesses Have to be Wheelchair Accessible?

Businesses are required to make reasonable efforts to be accessible to wheelchair users and other mobility challenged individuals. The costs can sometimes be prohibitive, in which case local council may be able to help.

But with Ramps.co.uk, we have striven to provide businesses with what they need to make their business accessible cheaply and effortlessly. Our self-install products can all be put in place within an hour, and in some cases in a matter of minutes.

To see how our products can help your business, check out the products mentioned in this article that piqued your interest on Ramps.co.uk today.