Disabled people’s access to High Street ‘shocking’, audit finds
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6 December 2014 -
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Image source, Science Photo Library
Image caption,
Disabled people in the UK and their families are estimated to have a spending power of £200bn
Access for disabled people on the High Street in Britain is "shocking", according to a government audit of more than 30,000 shops and restaurants.
Thousands of venues had failed to adapt their premises, with a fifth of shops excluding wheelchair users, a survey found.
There are 12 million people in Britain with disabilities, with an estimated spending power of £200bn.
Businesses are "missing a trick" and must do better, ministers said.
Accessibility information providers DisabledGo visited all of the 30,000 venues in person to assess them, in the largest-ever audit of its kind in the UK.
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Dr Gregory Burke, DisabledGo: "Businesses….are not communicating their access, so disabled people can’t plan in advance"
They found a fifth of shops had no wheelchair access, only 15% [...]