Accessible toilet on 4th floor
4
4
Date of visit: January 2023
I have experience of challenges around: moving around
Overall Rating
Good
Liberty is a luxury department store specialising in fashion and home wear. The shop itself is very beautiful, designed to look like a Tudor mansion house, with black and white beams, on the Great Marlborough Street side. On the 4th floor you can look down into the lower floors and there are carved wooden animals, see photos.
Disabled Access In and Around
Excellent
I went in with my friend and we both use a crutch, we both found the entrance by the flower stall accessible, this was partly due to it being quite busy and people holding the door open for us, including the doorman on our way out. We took the lift to the top floor (4th) to have a general look around. There is no seating and hence we didn't stay very long as I needed a seat. We used 2 different lifts. Each time they took a while to arrive. They are not particularly large but people were accommodating and made space for each other. Only 1 of the 2 lifts we used had a handrail. We found there was space for us to walk around, albeit I felt very nervous in the china department on the 3rd floor.
Parking & Transport
Excellent
Liberty is on the corner of Regent Street and Great Marlborough Street near the Oxford Circus end of Regent Street. The nearest tube station Oxford Circus is not step free, there are only flight of stairs from street to ticket hall level and the station is usually extremely busy. With the arrival of the opening of the Elizabeth Line, Bond Street tube station via Marylebone Lane entrance/ exit only, and Tottenham Court Road Station now have step free access. There are several buses that travel along Oxford Street and Regent Street and stop close by.
Accessible Toilets
Average
I used the accessible toilet on the 4th floor. It was not signposted well. By the lifts there was a floor guide saying that the accessible toilets were on the 2nd and 4th floors. When we got out on 4th floor the toilets were next to the lift. As I walked through there were no doors to open until I got to the accessible toilet door cubicle. It was the first of short line of toilets. The door has a discreet wheelchair user symbol on the door. Next to the door on the left if a push button. It doesn't work, you have to manually open the door. I went back in again to double check and there is no push button on the inside. It appears at one point the door was push button and at sometime that facility was removed, thereby removing a feature which makes access easier for disabled people, is a step backwards. This is why I have marked the toilets down. It would be nice for Liberty to reinstate the push button door into the cubicle. The toilet itself was clean and tidy. There were grab rails. the emergency cord was wrapped around the arm of one of the grab rails which I untied. There are 2 bins including which I think was labelled a "nappy bin" even though there was no nappy changing facilities in the cubicle. Next to the hand dry was a fixed bin that was attached to the wall potentially making it difficult for wheelchair users to use the dryer.
Staff
Excellent
Apart from the doorman opening the door when we left, we had no interaction with the staff. However, we both said that we felt comfortable visiting there.
Additional Information
We had a nice little visit but we didn't go everywhere, we had a quick look around on the 3rd and 4th floor near the lifts. I think there are a couple of places which are only accessible by stairs. It's a nice place to browse and maybe treat yourself or buy a special gift.
