Too right. The whole access situation has been designed for the benefit of of the centre and not people who have a disability or a pram.

You can not access the ground floor from the car park without the need to use two lifts. If the glass lift is out of action, hard luck. Who in this day and age wants to ask Staff if you can find them for help or even has the time to wait around for them.

Absolutely. The lift access is pathetic, and you are not supposed to balance pushchairs on escalators. SBC should have refused planning permission for the NEXT change without a proper ramp to the upper mall; and after all that time the new NEXT is not much better than the old one, there must have been a lot of space lost somewhere in that corner.

If the centre was to be built now I doubt it would be allowed to go ahead under Health and Safety.

The ingress and egress of the building is now down to 2, Westborough and Somerset Terrace.

Whilst technically it maybe within the disablement laws, the access to level 1 from the ground floor is by the glass lift only for those wheelchair bound. I would have thought provision had to be made available for an alternative method, ie: to be wheeled up a walkway or reverse.

"Brunswick centre manager Brunswick centre manager Jim Hughes said: "We are aware that there have been one or two issues with regards to this".

Nobody in 2009 should have to be going into shops to ask staff to assist in anything that is outside their shop. That falls under Brunswick centre manager Jim Hughes control.

Quite right all three of you, and Mrs Thompson.

"We have put signs up and asked people to contact staff in the shops where they are, who will call staff to assist."

Absolute rubbish. Forcing customers with disabilities, prams etc to call staff to assist them is bad enough in small shops and old buildings. In a large (supposedly) modern shopping centre, it's an absolute disgrace.

The removal of the ground to level one access should never have been allowed to go through. The wheelchair and pram access is now worse than ever.
In the 21st century people with prams or disabilites should not have to ask anyone for assistance because current health and safety and building legilation should already have taken this into account.
It would be interesting to see how this has effected their evacuation proceedures for the centre as they have removed not only an entrance but also exit. Not to mention the loss of use to the emergency services.

# But they have replaced it with an entrance and exit.
Straight into the New next store with steps, escalator and lift. What more do you want.

Oh yes a lift which can accommodate more than one vehicle at a time or a walk way.

Who in their right mind wants to queue at times for 10 minutes+ to go into next store then queue again to go down to the ground floor or queue again to go down to the outside from the next shop, walk down the street and enter the ground floor.

One point for Brunswick Centre Manager Jim Hughes to consider is, as a working grandmother with money to spend and limited mobility why would I want to waste precious quality time with my family standing around waiting for lifts in order to move around the floors of the shopping centre?

More so when Monks Cross or the Princes quay meets all
our needs.

Brunswick centre manager Jim Hughes said: "We are aware that there have been one or two issues with regards to this.

But profit must come before all else for the centre owners and tenants.

Never mind the “one or two issues with regards to this”, surely the centre manager, if qualified, must realise that almost every health, safety and disability law is being ignored for the profit of the landlords.

And if all this is not bad enough the most heinous of all offences being committed by the centre manager is the complete and absolute disregard of the fire safety regulations, how on earth can the centre be evacuated in an emergency when the lifts are not allowed to be used?, as this appears to be not only the only way in but also the only way out.

In my opinion this matter should be reported as a matter of great urgency to the local fire safety officer and I cannot understand how a fire certificate has been issued for this building when it is almost impossible to evacuate the first floor of people with disabilities, prams or disability and mobility chairs.

I for one will not be using the centre purely on the grounds of safety.

I emailed the SEN months ago about this problem. I also contacted NEXT and Debenhams aswell. Both said that it was not an issue. I must say i was very disappointed and quite frankly appalled by the layout and response i received. Not only is the store poorly thought out in terms of access for prams and wheelchairs the layout also makes it extremely difficult to browse around.
The new store has now caused the Brunswick Shopping centre to lose the sloping entrance, again casing problems for people with wheelchairs or prams. I am aware that there is a lift in the Brunswich shopping centre but it cannot cope with high demand and is often broken. After visiting the shopping centre recently i waited for over 20 minutes to access the lift and while waiting i wondered what would happen during a fire? It seems very unsafe if a fire were to accure as there would be a large number of prams and wheelchair users that would not be able to leave safely.
Also, while browsing on the top floor of Debenhams, i had to leave the store go around to the lift, wait an unreasonable amount of time just to re-enter the store on the next floor. After receiving emails back from Debenhams they informed me i could use the staff goods lift, in theory that sounds great...only the staff as less than helpful!!! It is beyond a joke, and as a new mum i can safely say i shall not be returning to either the new NEXT store or the Brunswick Shopping Centre in a hurry! I hope it becomes more pram and wheelchair friendly in the very near future.

Re Post 7.

Health & Safety Excutive have been informed to ask if the Brunswick conforms with all Disablement Law and Fire Safety regulations.

Re #9 I'm sure a lot of us will be keen to hear what their findings are.Lets hope a copy is passed to SEn for publication.
I was shocked to hear what some of the posters on this item are expected to put up with by next and the Brunswick centre management.
I dont blame them for not wanting to rush back until the matter has been resolved.
Its time Jim Hughes woke up to reality on this issue even if there have been one or two issues this is a biggy.
A good bit of PR for SEN would be to ask for some volunteers with access and mobility issues to try and get around the centre and print the feedback that they get.They are the only people who can give an accurate representation of the issues raised by this story as they after all are the customer " and the customer is always right !"