Purple Tuesday a huge hit amongst centre:mk’s accessible shoppers

November 2018 

centre:mk, one of the UK’s top 10 shopping destinations reflected its continued commitment to accessible shopping by participating in the UK’s first ever accessible shopping day ‘Purple Tuesday’ on November 13^th 2018. 

 The centre, which has a proud history of offering accessible shopping, supported this new initiative in order to raise awareness of the need to make customer-facing businesses more aware of opportunities and challenges surrounding accessible shopping.

centre:mk extended its call for feedback beyond their link up with a local disability action group, to offer a number of guests with accessibility needs the opportunity to shop and review the centre which resulted in much positive feedback alongside fresh insights that the team will be relaying back to retailers.

Mike, one of the guest reviewers commented how he found ‘plenty of disabled parking and found the size of the bays more than ample for his needs’.

Another reviewer Hayley, said she was ‘very happy with all amenities especially the Quiet Room’ as did Kathy who ‘loved the Quiet room’ and will be ‘using it more often now’ that she is aware of the facility.

What’s more this year centre:mk’s has launched additional dedicated slots to its all-inclusive experiences at Santa’s Grotto (which opened 9^th November). The inclusive slots offer signed sessions for deaf children and dedicated autism friendly slots for smaller group sizes with subdued lighting and toned down noise levels to create a more relaxing atmosphere.

 Kevin Duffy, Centre Director commented;  

“Being a truly accessible shopping destination is part of who we are at centre:mk. Naturally our design lends itself to accessible shopping as we’re all on one level, but it’s the behind the scenes developments we’ve undertaken in recent years that are making a difference to our guests overall experience. 

Since 2016, we have invested significantly into our award winning toilets (which include a changing places toilet) and multi-storey car park which is due to open later this month - both of which have carefully selected provisions for guests that have additional access considerations. Furthermore all of our staff (both customer facing and head office) are consistently undergoing training on topics surrounding accessibility to ensure that we are meeting all of our valued guests needs wherever we can.”

For further information on Purple Tuesday please see: https://purpletuesday.org.uk/

For further enquiries on the inclusive Grotto availability please contact the booking line on 0843 178 1304*.