News — Inclusive shopping at Cwmbran Centre
Inclusive shopping is something we are very passionate about at Cwmbran Centre, so we are pleased to be supporting Purple Tuesday again this year. We want to help our customers to understand that not every disability is visible, and we also want to help our disabled customers to feel safe at the Centre.
In 2020 we engaged with Access Able and Purple to undertake audits of our facilities, including recommendations that we could implement to improve the lives and experiences of visitors to Cwmbran Centre.
In the last year we have implemented:
- 16 new disabled parking bays.
- Improved disabled parking access signage.
- Installed new Hearing loops within our customer services and reception desks.
- New contrast nosing’s on several steps and bandings on bollards in addition to the tactile paving already in place.
- Re-painted ramps to assist visitors with reduced vision or dementia.
- Made improvements to our WC facilities and much more.
As part of the audits Access Able produced a disability and accessibility guide for visitors to the centre; this is linked to our website to help people plan their visit to Cwmbran Centre.
Did you know….
- As a Centre we have quiet shopping hours every day of the week between 9:30am – 11:00am when the centres music is turned off.
- We support the Torfaen Safe Places Scheme which enables support for vulnerable people whilst they are out and about. Information on participating stores can be found here – https://www.cwmbrancentre.com/torfaen-safe-places/
- Cwmbran Centre staff have undertaken training which includes Dementia Friends, Autism Aware, Purple Disability Customer Service Training and Sight Cymru Training.
- We have 5 trained Mental Health First Aiders on site.
- We support Time to Change Wales
- We have been awarded the Disability Confident Committed certificate level 1 and the Disability Parking Accreditation.
- We participated in the ‘Get There Together Cymru’ campaign which produced videos with the aim to help those living with dementia manage Covid-19 changes.
The insightful video resources can be viewed here:
- English: https://rb.gy/lkzstg
- Welsh: https://rb.gy/yrgqle
We are proud to have also worked closely with the Disability Advice Project on projects within the Centre even being able to offer them their first fundraising activity on the Centre since lockdown.
This is the start of the journey for Cwmbran Centre, everything that has been implemented is here to stay and will only improve as time goes on and new and further initiatives are introduced. We want to ensure that everybody that visits us has a positive experience and is able to access all areas of the Centre during their visit.