Wheelchair availability in Dundrum TC

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biggerry

Guest
My wife wanted to bring her mother (who has a respiratory complaint) to see the new Dundrum Town Centre. Her mother is only able to walk a short distance before she needs to take a break and get her breath back. My wife called up the centre to see if they have any wheelchairs. She was told that they have ONE available.

What a joke ... they spend millions of €'s and 4 years developing this place and they only have 1 measly wheelchair available.

Anybody know if there's any law / rules about minimum numbers of wheelchairs that should be available in shopping centre's or is it at the discretion of management?
 
What a joke ... they spend millions of €'s and 4 years developing this place and they only have 1 measly wheelchair available.

Anybody know if there's any law / rules about minimum numbers of wheelchairs that should be available in shopping centre's or is it at the discretion of management?

How can you say it's a joke when you don't know if there's any relevant statutory obligation on them to provide this service?

For what it's worth there is on, for example, local authorities or shopping centres to provide disabled parking spaces so I would guess that neither is there any obligation on them to provide actual wheelchairs for use by the public.
 
maybe there is no statutory obligation but surely there is a moral one . i recently saw electric chairs/carts - the ones steered with handlebars available in sainsburys in lisburn and it struck me at the time as being a very nice gesture.
 
biggerry specifically asked about rules/laws in this regard. I presumed that he meant statutory as opposed to "moral" or other ones. Anyway, I'm not sure I'd consider my local Tesco installing electric chairs a very welcoming gesture! :eek
 
No - it's just that I had visions of this adjacent to the hot food/deli counter:

[broken link removed]
 
I'm not sure the idea of shared wheelchairs is a great idea. A wheelchair is a very personal item, and is adjusted for the size/weight of the owner. It is not something that you can swap around easily.
 
"I'm not sure I'd consider my local Tesco installing electric chairs a very welcoming gesture!"

I'm sure you would if you would like to retain as much much independence as possible and not have to be stuck in your house all day and rely on relatives to do weekly shopping for you.
 
Re: RE: Wheelchair availability in Dundrum TC

I'm not sure the idea of shared wheelchairs is a great idea. A wheelchair is a very personal item, and is adjusted for the size/weight of the owner. It is not something that you can swap around easily.
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I really don't think this stands up, as shared wheelchairs are used extensively in hospitals and also in places like airports. They might not be ideal for all potential users, but for the unfortunate people who do use them, I would imagine they are a godsend.

Of course there should be more than one wheelchair available in a place the size of Dundrum TC. However I'm not sure if laws and regulations are the best way of dealing with this issue. If Dundrum TC management are alerted to this problem, I am sure they will have both the resources and goodwill to address it.
 
Maybe they could sell disposable wheelchairs in Tesco? :)

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