If there is something that irritates me.....

One thing that personally irritates me is when someone offers to look into something for you and they let you down by not coming back to you as promised.

As you know I have been looking into accessible accommodation that is offered by UK hotels and one chain that has caught my eye is Premier Inn, who have sent me a spreadsheet with 618 hotels.  There are 50+ new hotels that date back to December 2014 that don't appear and so I am not sure how updated this list is. 

Premier Inn Great Yarmouth

Last week I was messaging with someone from Premier Inn about hotel information for several newer hotels that are not on their spreadsheet and they included London City Aldgate (opened December 2014), Cambridge City East (opened December 2014), Winchester (opened December 2014), Birkenhead Town Centre (opened December 2014), London Bexleyheath (opened January 2015), Great Yarmouth (opened March 2015) and Southend-on-Sea (opened February 2015).  

The information that I was looking for was regarding the number of accessible rooms and what bathroom facilities each hotel offered.  Being that all these hotels are new builds they should all comply 100% with the Building Regulations.  For those of you that are unaware the regulations state that for every 20 normal rooms there should be 1 wheelchair accessible room and where there are several accessible rooms there should be a choice of bathroom facilities.
I know I could phone each new hotel but that would be expensive at 13p per minute and no guarantee that a member of staff would no the answer.  I have phoned in the past and staff are unsure and I have been told to call back later to speak with someone else.  I have also been put on hold and cut off.  It wouldn't be so bad if you could email the hotel but you can't and so I have asked through twitter.
I hope that someone reads this and delivers what they have promised.

My research into Yorkshire hotels

Recently Premier Inn sent me via email a spreadsheet that contains over 600+ hotels, which has helped me to carry out research on the accessibility of each hotel.  The last week or so I have looked at 41 hotels in Yorkshire with a mixture of results. 
Fourteen hotels which have 983 rooms of which 54 are AB (disabled) rooms, which have either 24 lowered bath with overhead shower and 30 have wetrooms.  This calculates as 5.49% which is the more rooms than the Building Regulations reccommends.

Bradford South

Of these hotels 8 are fully compliant because they have the correct number of AB rooms and offer a choice of lowered bath and overhead shower or a full wetroom.  The hotels are Rotherham East,  Wakefield City North, Huddersfield West, Huddersfield Central, Harrogate South, Halifax West, Bradford South and Bradford North.
The remaining 6 are partially compliant because they may not have the correct number of rooms or offer a choice of bathroom facilities and these are Hull West, Leeds City Centre (Arena), Hull North, Hull City Centre, Doncaster Central (High Fishergate) and Leeds East.
Thirteen hotels that I researched only give the number of guestrooms which total 1,110.  Of this group of hotels 7 do not give anymore information regarding bathroom facilities.  Sheffield-Barnsley and Goole hotels only offer lowered bath with overhead shower facilities but no wetrooms.  Sheffield City Centre, Bradford Central and Barnsley Central (M1, Jct 37) only offer wetroom facilities.  The spreadsheet entry for Huddersfield North says "disabled facilities available on request".
Of the 41 hotels 6 only give the number of AB (disabled) rooms which total 24.  Barnsley Dearne Valley and York City offer a choice of bathroom facilities.  Leeds South (Birstall), Sheffield City Centre Angel Street and Wakefield Central hotels offer only a lowered bath with overhead shower.  York North offers wetrooms only. 
Finally 8 hotels have absolutely no guestroom information.  Of these hotels 2 have information relating facilities while Doncaster Lakeside has only lowered bath with overhead shower.  Wakefield South (M1, Jct 39) offers 4 wetrooms.  The remaining hotels have no information on facilities.
As I have previously said in earlier posts it is a shame that hotel chains such as Prremier Inn do not give out accessibility information on their own websites.  All their sites have the same generic information which is very frustrating if you are looking for specific information.  The advice I was given by one hotel is to book a AB room online and then call the hotel to secure the type of bathroom facilility you need and that is all very well and good if they offer the type of bathroom facilities you require but if they don't you then have to cancel that reservation and look for another hotel that does.  This process can be very frustrating and can be costly at 13p per minute plus your operator costs. I have also have several frustrating calls to hotels where the staff on the desk do not know how many disabled rooms they have or what bathroom facilities and I was asked to call the desk later that day.  This is totally unacceptable especiallly if you are trying to find out facilities prior to booking and taking advantage of saver rates and offers. 
Disabled people spend a lot of money on leisure and it always feels as if there are a multitude of obstacles in their way when it comes to booking hotels in general and it wouldn't hurt for hotels to have information on accessible rooms and bathroom facilities available on websites, maybe one dy someone will take note and make changes for the better.

Source: Premier Inn spreadsheet, Direct Rooms.

Manchester Premier Inn Accessible Room Information

I have been researching and compiling a list of accessible rooms and facilities that are available at Premier Inn hotels in Manchester.  I have looked at 28 hotels that are in Manchester and the surrounding area.
Nine hotels which are City Centre (Deansgate Locks), Handforth, Cheadle, Wilmslow, Didsbury, Trafford Centre North, Salford Quays, Manchester Airport and City Centre Portland Street have a total of 939 rooms and of those 47 are AB rooms (disabled).  If totaled together they comply with the Building Regulations of 5% which is 46.95%.  However, 8 of these rooms are lowered bath with overhead shower and only 1 offers a wetroom.  None of the above hotels offer a choice of bathroom facilities and the Building Regulations state that where possible hotels should offer a choice of facilities. 
Eight hotels which are Bury, Altrincham, Prestwich, Denton, Heaton Park, Hyde, Manchester Central and Manchester Airport (Heald Green) have a total of 633 rooms and none give numbers of AB rooms.  The Premier Inn spreadsheet shows that 6 of these hotels do not offer wetrooms and 1 hotel (Bury) has 6 wetrooms, while Altrincham has no information regarding AB rooms or facilities. 
Five hotels which are Trafford Centre South, Swinton, Salford Central, Oldham Broadway, Manchester North have no room numbers or AB room information.  Six hotels which are Manchester Old Trafford, Sale, City Centre (Arena/Printworks), Manchester North, City Centre (Picadilly) only gives the numbers of AB rooms which total 46. Of the hotels 3 offer lowered bath with overhead shower a total of 15 bathrooms while 2 offer wetrooms a total of 21 and 1 hotel offers an equal number of bathrooms and wetrooms (5 each). 
Due to the lack of available information on these 28 hotels whether from their spreadsheet, websites or third parties I was only able to get total rooms for 17 hotels and AB room totals for 15 hotels.  Twenty percent of hotels have absolutely no imformation.  The information superhighway is suppose to be a way in which we share information electronically and I would have thought that someone like Premier Inn would have taken adavantage of this by giving their customers the best information via their website but in my opinion they fall far short of this.  As I have previously written all their websites give the same generic information.  I had to visit other sites to find out how many rooms each hotel had and had to take the AB room information from their spreadsheet which often gives partial information and maybe incorrect.
The spreadsheet that I was forwarded lists 618 hotels and the list does not include their newest hotels of which I know there are at least 51 which were opened between December 2014 and present day.  These 51 hotels are all in the UK and should comly fully with the Building Regulations of one in twenty rooms should be accessible and each hotel should offer a choice of bathroom facilities.  I know that some hotels are of listed or historic interest and therefore maynot comply but a large number of their hotels are built to order and there is no reason why they should not comply.  I have contacted Premier Inn regarding their new hotels and await to hear from them.  I hope this is of interest to those of us who are disabled and would find life so much easier if this information was freely available. 

Sources:
Premier Inn spreadsheet.  Premier Inn Websites, Directrooms.com and Booking.com