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Comment by elle lisney on October 22, 2009 at 1:24am

Hi all,

Ivor asked me to post about Strasbourg here - I went last month for the Freedom Drive. The Freedom Drive is a rally to the EU Parliament in Strasbourg.
It is an opportunity for people with disabilities from all European
countries to join together and unite at the European Parliament .

Last month over 440 disabled people from 21 countries descended on Strasbourg.
Here is a few notes from this trip there in my blog - http://connectculture.wordpress.com/2009/10/12/strasbourg-september-2009/

and here are some photos of Strasbourg - http://www.flickr.com/photos/connectculture/sets/72157622405091492/ and Obernai - http://www.flickr.com/photos/connectculture/sets/72157622405091492/

Comment by Ivor Ambrose on October 20, 2009 at 2:09pm

Hope to see you in Athens in 2012 !!

Comment by Ivor Ambrose on October 20, 2009 at 2:04pm

Sounds good, Heidi. Will take a look... and probably add a link to it on the ENAT website at http://www.accessibletourism.org/?i=enat.en.links.
It can be a problem to have items posted on many different sites, so I try to collect more general things on ENAT....Rail travel isn't quite hippotherapy, is it!? You know what I mean?!

Comment by Heidi Paliz on October 18, 2009 at 3:06am

ARe you interested?
I postet new information about accessible railroad travelling in Germany - at my group Hippotherapy Fundacion AM-EN at NING

Comment by Sheila King on August 13, 2009 at 7:05am

Many thanks for that information Peter - it will certainly be helpful when we are assessing whether a facility's toilet/shower meets the criteria for being eligible to be on our website.
Can you please send me a copy of your brochure when it is ready. If it is too big for the e-mail please send to me at: 37 Cove Blvd. River Heads, Queensland, 4655, Australia.
Looking forward to receiving it.
Regards
Sheila.

Comment by Pieter Ghijsels on August 12, 2009 at 1:29pm

Dear Sheila
Sorry for replying so late. I’ve been out of office a couple of days.
Belgium has no national building legislation, but the new regulation that is applicable for the Flemish region (northern part of the country) has the following criteria for public accessible toilets and showers (note: this is my own translation, I don’t know of any official version in English):
The size of the construction of an adapted toilet must be at least 1.70 m x 2.25 m, in order to guarantee at least 1.65 m x 2.20 m free room after finishing the interior (walls, plinths). If these minimum measures are applied, the door must be in the short wall of the room.
The construction size of an adapted shower area, with or without a washbasin, must be 2.20 by 2.40 m, in order to have a guaranteed free space of 2.15 x 2.35 m after finishing. Also in this case, the minimum standards are only accepted if the entrance is located in the short wall of the area.
If the toilet and shower are in one room, the minimal construction size is 2.40 x 2.45 m (2.35 x 2.40 m after finishing the interior). The location of the door is, again, in the shorter wall if there is only 2.35 x 2.40 m room.

I hope that this is helpful to you.

Comment by Sheila King on August 5, 2009 at 6:42am

Pieter
I look forward to receiving the brochure on accessible Flanders-Brussels. If there are such things could you please send me a copy of the legislation covering accessible toilets and showers in Belgium.

Comment by Pieter Ghijsels on August 3, 2009 at 9:32am

Sheila
We have a brochure of accessible accommodation in Flanders-Brussels. All addresses have been assessed by trained people and meet high accessiblity standards. The translation to English is almost ready. I'll send you a copy as soon as possible.
Before starting at the tourist board, I've worked for a disability organisation. So, I know all about the struggle for fundings. There may be quite some web sites about accessible tourism on the net, but many of them have - unfortunately - become ghost sites already. Reliable information, from an independent source, is still a rare good.

Comment by Sheila King on August 1, 2009 at 1:42am

Peter
Thanks for the translation - I'm glad I asked! Can you identify for me any accommodation and/or tourism venues in your region that I could invite to be part of our web site. We do not have anything on the page covering that area. At the present time we are concentrating on collecting details of travel agencies which either specialise in or are happy to utilise our web site when making travel arrangements for people with disabilities. It really is surprising how the puddle of what is required gets even bigger every time we add an item. We have now been asked to identify tour coaches and the routes they travel, which are accessible to people with disabilities. I guess our web site will never be finished. It would be nice if we could get some funding to assist but all our applications to funding organisations have been unsuccessful. The excuse is that there is a perliferation of such web sites. We could not find one in Australia when we started to think about a dedicated web site a couple of years ago.

Comment by Pieter Ghijsels on July 31, 2009 at 9:38am

I found your contribution very informative. Your website looks great: I'll make sure to add a link on www.accessinfo.be. :o)
I think that an economy and marketing-related approach is very likely to be picked up by the industry. At least, it seems to work in my region Flanders, Belgium. But there's also a need of mainstreaming the public environment. An entrepreneur in tourism will still need the authorities to organize accessible public transport, accessible pavements, street crossings, signalisation and public services. This may be obvious in some countries, but certainly not everywhere in Europe.

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