Lakeside Village Outlet Shopping will join the global celebrations for Purple Tuesday by making a new commitment to further improve accessibility at the centre with new drop kerbs and additional tactile paving slabs.
The management team at the Doncaster based outlet have reinforced their commitment to accessible shopping by supporting the special awareness day.
Purple Tuesday, which falls on November 1 this year, will see the stores at Lakeside Village join in with retailers across the country to introduce new measures and promote existing measures that make the shopping experience more inclusive for disabled customers.
The initiative is co-ordinated by the disability organisation Purple and has been endorsed by the government.
Di Mellis, centre manager at Lakeside Village, said: “We are extremely proud of the work we have done at Lakeside Village to make our centre as accessible and inclusive as possible for all our customers.
“It is really important for us to be marking this day dedicated to accessible shopping but to also be constantly working to deliver accessible shopping all year round.
“We provide a range of facilities to meet the needs of our shoppers. This includes a weekly Autism hour on a Saturday morning where we provide a calmer and quieter shopping experience, a Changing places facility, platinum award winning disabled toilets that have been recently improved with additional handrails, a quiet room for shoppers who need a little time out as well as taking part in Deaf Awareness Training and Mental Health Training creating champions in the team.
“We also have ample disabled parking and free loan of wheelchairs for our customers and the centre is easy access with no lifts or stairs throughout.
“We’ll be using the day to continue to talk to our customers with disabilities to find out what else we can put in place to make sure that our centre is as inclusive as possible.”
The team have committed to installing new drop kerbs next year as well as additional tactile paving slabs to the crossings.
The aim of Purple Tuesday is to make customer-facing businesses more aware of the opportunities and challenges and inspire them to make changes to improve the disabled customer experience over the long term.
To review Lakeside Village’s Access Guide visit: https://www.accessable.co.uk/doncaster-metropolitan-borough-council/access-guides/lakeside-village.