Premier Inn London Hotels

If you have read my previous posts you will already know that I am doing my own research into hotels and one area is accessible accommodation.  One hotel chain that I have been researching is Premier Inn.

Premier Inn London County Hall

I have started by looking at 44 London hotels which have 6,570 rooms of which 319 are accessible rooms.  Only 8 hotels the Angel Islington, City (Old Street), County Hall, Dagenham, Gatwick Manor Royal, Greenwich, Richmond and Stratford have the correct number of accessible rooms as laid out in the Building Regulations. The regulations state that their should be one wheelchair accessible room for every twenty hotel rooms or thereof.  These hotels also offered a choice of lowered bath with overhead shower or a wetroom.
There are 6 hotels which do not have the required number of accessible rooms for them to

Premier Inn Hampstead

comply with the regulations and of the rooms that are available they do not offer a choice of bathroom facilities.  They offer either a lowered bath with overhead shower or a wetroom.  These hotels are Beckton, Hammersmith, Hampstead, Hanger Lane, Kensington (Olympia) and Waterloo.
There are 9 hotels that have the correct number of wheelchair accessible rooms.  However, they do not offer a choice of bathroom facilities, they either have a lowered bath with overhead shower or a wetroom.  These hotels are City (Tower Hill), Elstree/Borehamwood, Docklands Excel, Edgware, Gatwick Airport A23, Gatwick Airport South, Southwark Borough Market, Southwark Tate Modern and Wimbledon South.
I have also looked at 11 new builds which have opened between December 2014 and February 2016.  By all rights these hotels should comply fully and give choice of bathroom facilities.  The new builds are Aldgate, Bexleyheath, Kingston upon Thames, Lewisham, Romford, St Pancras, Uxbridge, Holborn, Edmonton, Brentford and Sidcup.
There are 10 hotels that I have been unable to research fully as information relating to them is pretty vague and they are Blackfriars, Euston, Gatwick Airport East, Harrow, Kew, Kings Cross, Leicester Square, Putney Bridge, Tower Bridge and Victoria.
I have to say that with only a few hotels being fully compliant and others only being partial I was suprised that they achieved 4.85% of their rooms being accessible.  It is a shame that some hotels only offer one type of bathroom facility and not a choice, for someone like myself having only one type of bathroom facility often means the decision is made for me.  This means that I am often further away from my destination than I origionally planned or I may have chosen to go with another hotel chain that can offer a hotel with the right facilities near to my destination.  It hard to be a loyal customer when these types of obstacles are put in your way.

Source: Premier Inn Database, Booking.com

The Purple Pound

Firstly, I am a person with a disablility who is passionate about equality and awareness and trying to make a difference for others.  I generally see a lot of inequality around me in my daily life and I can't change everything but what I can do is try to make a difference by tackling one thing at a time.  Even if that is campaigning  for signage to be put up at four designated disabled bays at a HIEX Hotel.

I have spent many nights in hotels and one problem is that many of them do not have the required number of accessible rooms that the Building Regulations state.  I accept that some hotels are listed or are of historical interest but when a fairly new hotel fails to comply with the one in twenty room ratio it annoys me. I think that the majority of hotel chains are missing a trick by not having more accessible rooms and grades. 

They don't appear to have notice the potential spending power that many disabled people have often referred to as the purple pound. The 11 million or so disabled people living in the UK have billions and billions of disposable income which makes them an economic force and should not be forgotten.

I am always looking at new hotels that are being built as these should be complying with not only the number of accessible rooms but they should also offer wetroom or bathroom with bathtub in equal numbers. 

Thhe Premier Inn has fifteen new hotels that are opening in the next six months.  February sees the opening of London Archway, Edinburgh City Centre (Royal Mile), hub by Premier Inn Edinburgh Royal Mile, hub by Premier Inn London Spitalfields, Bristol City Centre (Lewins Mead), Felixstowe Town Centre, Newcastle City Centre (The Gate), London Sidcup and Portsmouth Havant South (Langstone/A27). While March sees the opening of Buxton, Penrith and Ware.  May has two more hotels opening and they are Matlock and Edinburgh City Centre (York Place). June has Newport City Centre (Wales).  I will be interested to see if these new builds comply with the standards set out by Building Regulations.  I know that the Premier Inn in Bexleyheath which opened just over a year ago does comply fully and does offer both a wetroom or a bathroom with lowered bathtub.  

IHG brand hotels which include the Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express and Hotel Indigo are opening new hotels this year in London, Manchester and Edinburgh to name a few.  

All my life I have contributed to society and I see myself as equal to the next person but sometimes I feel that I am definately not an equal.  It shouldn't take building regulations to force hotels to include more accessible rooms into their future plans.  There is a large community of disabled people who do not require the use of a wheelchair but require the use of a wetroom or walk-in shower because they may not be able to use a bath because of poor upper body strength or injury. Space is not required to accommodate a wheelchair and so the size of the bedroom area could be reduced to that of a standard room or equivalent grade.  This would mean that a room designed with walking disabled in mind could be universally used by all guests not just ones with a disability.

I have read many hotel reviews by disabled hotel guests and the one question that everyone seems to have is who designs these accessible rooms because the designers don't seem to have any understanding of disability.  Is that the fault of the hotel or the architects I don't know but maybe they should actually ask some disabled guests what they would like to see in a room.  I would like to see more twin accessible rooms or zip-lock beds so that you can share with a friend not everyone is travelling with a partner.  I would like to see better staff training of disability as I feel that staff are often unsure of how to approach a disabled person and I understand but really we won't bite!  We are are like any other guest and just want to be treated the same.

 

  

Holiday Inn Wrexham get yourself sorted!

Today (11th February) I was looking for new hotels opening this year and I came across several hotels that belong to the IHG brand.  I have stayed in many hotels over the years within the IHG brand portfolio and I am a Gold Elite member and I know that doesn't mean much but it shows a degree of loyalty from me.  

One hotels official website was the Holiday Inn Wrexham and I was able to find most of what I was looking for but for a small piece of information.  On the page was a link to email the hotel and I thought great lets give it ago.  Being disabled I wanted to know whether the accessible rooms had a roll-in shower (wetroom) or had a bathroom with a lowered bathtub and grab rails or offered the choice.  I know rooms are not available until 1st May but that should not stop them answering queries from likely guests.

I didn't get a reply from the hotel but from the postmaster to say "that the group info only  accepts messages from people in its organization or on its allowed senders list, and your email address isn't on the list".  It took several minutes to actually sink in and to say that I was furious was an understatement.  Why put a link in the public domain if it is only meant for their own people to use it does not make sense to me.  I was looking at making a possible booking later in the year but without the information I require that won't happen.  This is how to loose customers.

 

 

Designing a new template for hotel accessibility

Being a frequent hotel guest I feel I can give an honest opinion of accessible rooms and facilities and pass on suggestions on what could be improved to improve the experience for

Premier Inn

future guests.  Accessible rooms are generally akin to standard hotel rooms and it is the practice of most hotels to remove furniture such as sofas, comfy chairs and small tables to give the illusion of a larger space and leaving its occupants with the bare minimum.  The Premier Inn have stated on their website that if an accessible room is a bit on the small size they replace the kingsize bed with a standard double bed.  This practice is unfair and where is the equality in this act? 
Accessible bathroom facilities don't fare much better with most looking clinical and functional at best.  Many are tiled white with no imagination.  The bathrooms are either a wheel-in shower or a lowered bathtub with grab rails.  A lot of disabled people out there wonder who was the bright spark who thought it was a good idea to put bathtubs in these bathrooms.  In   my

Holiday Inn

opinion whoever the person was did not do enough research into the clientele who would using the facilities.  Not everyone has the ability or upper body strength to transfer using bath boards.   
It often feels from personal experience that walking disabled guests requirements are largely ignored.  Often we do not require the extra space to manoeuvre around a room but do need the facilities that a wheel-in (walk in) shower can provide.  
When the facilities allow I always opt to stay in a normal guest accommodation because it offers me more choice of room grade and extras like access to private lounges, extra room facilities and often better location within the hotel.  Disabled people often chunter on about equality but that will only happen if they stand up for their rights.  That is why I believe that the solution is a guest room that can be designed for use by both disabled and non-disabled guests with a bathroom facilities that offer both bathtub and a walk-in shower.  
It was last summer (2015) that I first became aware of the possibility of a competition which would be run by RIBA for an architect to design an attractive accessible hotel room template or a room template that can be easily altered for a disabled guest.  The Premier Inn was mentioned as a possible partner but that was not confirmed.  
Apparently hoteliers such as the Premier Inn, IHG, Hilton Hotels and Millennium Hotels amongst others do not want rooms to look "medical" in anyway.  I am not the biggest fan of accessible guest accommodation in hotels but I would never describe it as looking "medical"; spartan maybe but not "medical".  
It doesn't help that that groups such as a  Inclusive hotels group who generally meet every one or two months in London to discuss and work on guidance and how to present it to hotel groups.  This group is made up of designers, access professionals, occupational therapists and supply specialists.  I bet there is not one disabled person amongst this select group of individuals and that is what irritates me the most is the do-gooders or people who have been on a course or to university and think they know what it is like to be disabled, I always say "walk in my shoes for one day" no one can possibly know what obstacles and challenges we face daily and the mental and physical effort it takes to do the simplest of tasks.  

Moving forward to December (2015) and I received another email telling me that the design

Premier Inn ???

competition was going to be launched shortly and is in conjunction with a hotel chain; could this be the Premier Inn I ask?  I was asked if I would submit my thoughts on what I look for in a successful hotel stay.  I was chuffed to think that I had been asked to contribute my views and was asked to do this as soon as possible because a broad agreement on the competition had been made.  I sent my document a couple of days later and awaited feedback but  I heard nothing for sometime until I sent a email. The feedback I received had said it was "extremely useful" and being of a curious nature I replied to ask how it was useful to them and I was taken aback by the reply which said that I was more concerned with luxury and comfort and they were so concerned whether they can use the loo and therefore they did not notice the ambiance of the room.  Another email waffled on about about rules of the competition being drawn up and the not knowing what the guidance would include.
I am so angry and feel used by a person who I thought had the same ideas about equality for disabled people in our society being disabled themselves.  Accessibility had brought us in contact and it had inspired me to do more as a campaigner for disability rights to try and make a difference.  I am exasperated knowing that I can do nothing about the way I was used and I do not know if or how my suggestions on a successful hotel may be used in the future.  I submitted that document in good faith and expected nothing back and in hindsight I should have asked questions when I was approached; I have learnt a valuble lesson here.
Finally, I do not know what they thought I was going write about hotels but for me accessible bathrooms are generally the same large, clean and adequate wherever you stay and especially in chain hotels, so I do not understand their loo comment.  I do not believe I have done anything wrong in wanting comfort and luxury when staying in a hotels; after all isn't that what equality is about.  There is a lot more in my document so if anyone would like to read my thoughs on a successful hotel stay I will post it.