[Billcat]

[QUOTE=Acrylic-bobThe installation of a loo for disabled folk might be a nice idea but it is a waste of resources and floor space and adds unnecessarily to the maintainance bill, since it will never be used ( which is perhaps not strictly true, we actually use it as a store room)....

Can we we not keep some sense of proportion and tailor the solution to the problem rather than have central government insist that it knows better than we do. I would have more respect for politicians and government if they started treating us as responsible adults rather than as feckless and wilful children.[/QUOTE]

Point 1 - The fact that the loo is able to serve the disabled certainly does not prevent those with conventional abilities from using it (at least here in the USA).

Unfortunately, cases such as these, due to many, many years of vurtually complete inaction on the issue by the so-called "responsible adults," the central government had to step in. Most businesses and, indeed, many governmental bodies were totally unwilling to provide access to buildings, let alone toilet facilities for the handicapped. The prevailing attitude was "If it does not work for you, too bad, not my problem!" The result of lack of transport, building access and, yes, even accessbile loos, meant that many handicapped folks were excluded from many things, the most important being employment. Their families, and in many cases, the government had to support them, even though they could have become productive citizens.

The same attitude was frequently found in businesses where women had traditionally been excluded - "We don't have a women's loo, so I cannot hire you." that attitude may have been acceptable once upon a time, but it certainly is not today.

Sometimes, it takes a change to the law to cause anything to happen. That was certainly true in terms of opening opportunities to many folks here in the USA, including women, people of color, and the handicapped. Since the laws have changed here in the US (and in the UK, too), opportunities have greatly enlarged for folks with handicaps. Life has certainly not become convenient for these folks, merely less inconvenient, as a non-functioning elevator in an airport recently brought home to me. Not only that, but the overall attitude of society towards the handicapped has become much better. Frankly, if the central government had not stepped in, I believe that this problem would never have been addressed in a meaningful manner. From a purely economic point of view, any business that chose to address this problem unilaterally would be concerned about the possiblity of incurirng costs that their competitors did not have. Making it law put all the businesses on a level playing field and made economically viable to comply (or, conversely, costly not to do so). Businesses as a whole do a poor job of addressing the issues facing society, as they are not designed to handle these issues.

A lot of our firehouses and police departments here in the U.S. found that they needed to upgrade their facilities in order to accomodate women in the workforce. They often made exactly the same arguments used by business for keeping women off the force that you have used in your message - "heavy weights," "agile and fit," "manually dexterous," and "in full possession of all five senses." As things turned out, these were merely excuses for doing nothing. There were women who could qualify as firefighters and police and there were also jobs, albeit not all jobs, that could be handled by folks whose abilities were somewhat limited.

Not wanting to pay for a disabled loo is pretty cummy excuse for continuing job discrimination.