Disabled Toilets

Joanne Sambrook
Member - 6 posts

my understanding would be :
1. If you do not have any wheelchair users or others who need to use the disabled toilets (regardless of which floor level) employed at the moment then this would not be illegal. If you consequently employed a wheel chair user or other disabled toilet user in the near or far future see point no2.

2. if you have wheelchair users or others who would need to use the disabled toilets (on any level) currently employed by the company - and they have no access to or no need to access the ground floor of the office block in the normal course of their business you are entitled to use the disabled toilet for storage if the other disabled facilities are reasonably easily accessable and available.

3.if you have wheelchair users or others who need to use the disabled toilets (on any level) currently employed by the company - and they need access to and/or utilise/work on or around the ground floor of the office block in the normal course of their business then I would suggest you discuss with them how they feel about using the toilet for the short-term storage and what effect it would have on them. If they feel that being on the ground floor and having to travel to the next floor could easily compromise their privacy and welfare (i.e it takes too long to get there!) then you would be wise to consider an alternative - especially if able users do not have to travel the same distance in the same situation - i.e. if you are using the disabled toilet for storage as well as the non-disabled toilet for storage then you are not compromising the ACCESS FOR ALL objective of the Act - but if you are just blocking the disabled toilet on the ground floor and not the abled toilet then you could be seen to be putting your disabled users at a disadvantage to the abled users.

Hope this helps
Bo S