The Shopmobility scheme in St Johns Shopping Centre have awarded their first ‘Shopmobility Friendly’ sticker to the Wilkinson's store on the upper mall of the Shopping Centre.

As part of the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) which came into force on the 1^st October this year, all companies, public services and facilities  premises must have made ‘reasonable adjustments’ to their premises, in order to overcome barriers to access.

Staff from the store have been incredibly supportive to the work of Shopmobility and have liased with project staff and volunteers on an on going basis for advice on how to make their store more accessible for people with disabilities.

As well as being very generous in donating a number of items from the store for raffle prizes, they have implemented an induction training session for new staff which details the importance of recognising the different needs of people with disabilities and how they can best serve them.

Shopmobility Manager Ann Molyneux comments, “We would like to take this opportunity to thank the management and staff at Wilkinson’s for all their hard work in making sure their store is fully accessible to our clients and service users. They have been very good to us since we moved here in April and we hope they other shops will join them in making positive changes to their customers with disabilities.”

The project will be awarding ‘Shopmobility friendly’ stickers to shops within the city centre in the future, in order to let clients know which shops are going out of their way to train their staff and improve access to goods and services for disabled customers.

Photo Caption . L-R Ann Molyneux (Shopmobility Manager), Gary Gerard (Wilkinson's Manager), Jean Cruse (Service User) and Ian Skettle (St John's Assistant Centre Manager).

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