Inverclyde Blog

 In this Blog I am going to talk about my trip to Inverclyde and how my visit helped the Inverclyde community to make it more inclusive.

As you may know, I campaign for Changing Places in Glasgow. So, I was delighted to be asked if I would help out in Inverclyde in their campaign to increase the number of a Changing Places facilities. There was only one Changing Places there in the day center for people with Disabilities which wasn’t open all the time.

In October 2019 I made the trip to Inverclyde where I made a presentation on Changing Places toilets to some representatives from the HSCP, the local authority and some of the people who use their services. I shared my experience of Changing Places, how important they are and how great it would be to have more Changing Places facilities in the Inverclyde community. 

I really enjoyed my trip to Inverclyde and was delighted to get involved.

Since my trip to Inverclyde, I am delighted to say that Inverclyde has one more changing places toilet in the Tesco in Port Glasgow which it is open to the public seven days a week. This is the first step to make Inverclyde more accessible for everyone. But it doesn't stop there! The plans are under way for getting some more changing places toilets with plans to build the new Inverclyde HSCP Learning Disability Community Hub.

The new Inverclyde HSCP Community Hub is to replace the current Fitzgerald Day Centre in Greenock. It will offer day opportunities to people with more complex needs and autism. However, this new building is going to be more flexible than the current Fitzgerald Centre. It will be a community hub that everyone can use. There will be changing places that the public can use so if anyone is visiting or passing through Inverclyde they would be able to use it.

It is great to see Inverclyde getting more accessible.   For smaller local authorities like Inverclyde it can be more difficult to improve the accessibility, because there may not enough space or resources (which are tight everywhere). But Inverclyde shows that anywhere can improve their accessibility for everyone.

I would like to say well done to the community of Inverclyde and can't wait to come down again!

Written by Jill