Accessibility in indoor play is usually reported as a single yes or no on a website, and it is not a single anything. A venue can be perfectly step free and still be a place a family cannot use, and another can have a step at the door and be workable because somebody thought about the rest.
This piece sets out what the components are, in the order that families tend to hit them.
What the law actually requires
The Equality Act 2010 makes disability a protected characteristic and requires service providers to make reasonable adjustments so that a disabled person is not put at a substantial disadvantage compared with somebody who is not disabled.
Two features of that duty matter here. It is anticipatory: a service provider is expected to think in advance about what disabled customers might need rather than waiting to be asked. And reasonable does real work: what is reasonable depends on the size and resources of the business, the cost, and how practical the change is. A small independent venue in a listed building and a large purpose built one are not held to identical standards.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission publishes guidance on what the duty means for service providers, and the legislation is public. What follows is a description of what good provision looks like in practice, not advice about any individual situation.
The changing gap, which is the big one
If you read one section of this piece, read this one, because it is the facility whose absence most often determines whether a family can go out at all.
A standard baby changing table serves a child up to roughly two years old and around eleven kilograms. After that, a child who needs changing needs something else: an adult sized changing bench, space for a carer to work, and in many cases a ceiling track hoist.
Without that, the options are a changing mat on a toilet floor, which is undignified and unhygienic, or going home. Families in this position organise their entire day around where such facilities exist, and the number of leisure venues that have them is small.
A venue that has installed proper changing provision has made a real investment and should say so prominently, because for the families who need it, it is the single most important fact about the building. A venue that has not is not necessarily failing its legal duty, since reasonableness takes account of cost, and it should at least know the answer and say it plainly rather than describing the baby change as accessible facilities.
Getting round the building
The route matters more than the entrance. Working through it in order:
- The door and the car park. A step free entrance is no use if the accessible parking is at the far end of a retail park.
- The counter. A section at a height a wheelchair user can be served at.
- Getting to a table. Enough space between tables to get a chair through, and at least one table that a wheelchair fits under rather than alongside.
- Reaching the play area. Whether an adult who uses a wheelchair can get to the edge of the toddler area, which is where they need to be.
- The toilets. An accessible toilet that is not being used as a store cupboard, which is depressingly common.
Note how many of those are about the accompanying adult rather than the child. Disabled parents and grandparents take children to play centres, and provision aimed only at disabled children misses half the population it should serve.
| Stage of the visit | What is needed | Common failure |
|---|---|---|
| Parking and arrival | An accessible space genuinely close to the door | A space at the far end of a shared retail park |
| The entrance | Step free, or a usable alternative that does not involve finding somebody | A single step, with a ramp kept in a cupboard |
| Paying | A counter section at seated height | One high counter across the whole front |
| Sitting down | A table a wheelchair fits under, with room to get to it | Fixed bench seating throughout |
| The toilet | An accessible toilet that is clear and available | An accessible toilet used for storage |
| Changing | An adult sized bench and, where possible, a hoist | Baby change only, presented as accessible provision |
| Playing | At least one ground level route into the play structure | One piece of segregated equipment described as the accessible one |
| Information | Specifics published in advance, so a family can plan | The phrase accessible facilities available and nothing more |
A working frame put together by this desk from published guidance and from the plain wording of the standards named on the page. It is not a survey, not a measurement and not drawn from any venue.
Accessible play, rather than accessible buildings
Getting into the building is the first problem. Being able to play is the second, and it is the one venues address least often.
What helps varies by child, but some things are broadly useful. A ground level route into part of the play structure rather than a climb. Something at the entrance to the frame that can be used from a seated position. A toddler area with a genuinely level floor rather than a raised soft platform. A sensory or quiet space, discussed in the piece on quiet sessions. And equipment that offers more than one way to do the same thing.
What does not help is a single piece of equipment described as the accessible one, positioned away from everything else. Segregated provision is provision, and it is not inclusion, and children notice.
- What changing facilities do you have for a child who is past nappy age?
- Is there a hoist, and is the accessible toilet kept clear?
- Can a wheelchair user get to the edge of the toddler area?
- What is your carer admission policy, and what evidence do you ask for?
- When do your quiet or sensory friendly sessions run?
Carer admission
Many venues admit a carer free with a disabled visitor. It is not a legal requirement in general terms, it is common practice, and it is worth asking about because it changes the cost of a visit substantially for families who need two adults.
What is worth interrogating is the evidence a venue asks for. Some accept a disability benefit letter or a carer's card. Some ask for nothing. A venue that demands documentation that a family may not have, for a discount rather than for a facility, has created a barrier where it meant to remove one.
Staff, and being told once
The least expensive part of accessibility is staff who have been told what the venue offers.
The experience families describe most often is not refusal, it is not knowing. A family arrives, asks about the changing bench, and nobody at the counter knows whether there is one. A parent asks whether the quiet session is running and is told to check the website, which is where they got the information in the first place.
A venue where every member of staff can answer three questions, what accessible facilities exist, when the quiet session runs, and what the carer policy is, has solved most of the customer facing part of accessibility for the price of a five minute briefing.
Publishing it properly
The other cheap intervention is publishing the detail in advance. A family planning a visit needs to know before they get in the car, and a page that says accessible facilities available tells them nothing.
What is useful is specific: the number of steps, the width of the doorway, whether there is a hoist, the type of changing provision, whether there is a quiet room, what the carer policy is, whether there is a place to park close by, and when the quiet sessions are.
Any venue can publish that in an afternoon and it costs nothing. Its absence is the clearest possible signal about how much thought has gone in.
If you need something a venue does not have
It is worth asking rather than assuming. The reasonable adjustments duty is anticipatory, but it also operates in the moment, and plenty of adjustments are free: letting a family in ten minutes before opening so a child can settle in a quiet room, allowing a wheelchair through a route normally kept clear, turning the music down, or letting a child who cannot queue go first.
Venues frequently say yes to things they have never thought of, and the ones that say yes twice are worth going back to.