5 Reasons To Get Changing Places In Sports Stadiums In 2024

Over 250,000 profoundly disabled people in the UK rely on Changing Places toilets but currently, these facilities are available at less than 10% of sports venues.

Here at RISE, we’re passionate about improving accessibility in sport and our vision is to put a Changing Places facility in every UK sports venue by 2030. That’s why we created our #RISEFORSPORT campaign to raise awareness, push for legislative change, and support sports venues across the country that want to make their facilities more accessible for all.

Here are five reasons to get Changing Places in sports stadiums in 2024.

1) Accessibility is Ethical

Regardless of legislation, campaigns or initiatives, there is a strong ethical case for accessibility. All of us have a moral imperative to uphold the rights of disabled people and ensure that they’re able to fully participate in society.

Despite The Equality Act (2010) being in place for well over a decade now, disabled people still face discrimination, prejudice and barriers to accessing education, work, health and leisure.

Rather than get caught up in what the law tells us we ought to do for disabled people, we should consider our ethical duty towards others. When we think about ethics, rather than legislation or policy, we can connect our motivations to the heart of the matter – helping others in society to exercise the same freedoms we enjoy.

Currently, without the benefit of an accessible Changing Places facility, people with complex needs are excluded from facilities and activities that many of us take for granted. Or, if they do attend sports venues, they may find the only option for their changing and toileting needs is to be laid on the floor of a public toilet.

Not only is this unhygienic and dangerous but it’s also undignified, and understandably, many disabled people and their carers will choose not to participate in sporting events rather than face this possibility.

Changing Places improve the quality of life for the disabled people who use them, making it a moral issue for the whole of society rather than an issue exclusively for disabled people and their carers.

2) The Purple Pound

The Purple Pound refers to the potential spending power of disabled households. It’s no surprise that businesses that don’t take measures to adapt their services or facilities to disabled people will miss out on business from disabled customers. After all, disabled people aren’t going to pay to access your facilities if they literally can’t! It’s estimated that businesses lose out on a staggering £2 billion per month by ignoring the needs of disabled people.

Making adaptations, such as installing Changing Places facilities, ensures that your premises are accessible to those living with disabilities so your organisation won’t lose out on the custom of the 16 million disabled people living in the UK.