My name is Sam chapman and I live in the Reading area. My interests are
broad, though at present they revolve around the development of what I would
call 'Adaptive' kitchen unit system which would enable private, public and
Housing Associations to install units which can be readily converted from
'conventional' to wheelchair accessible units and 'switched' back and forth
depending on the circumstances of the person using them. I have indeed now
developed and built such a design, using commercially available kitchen
units which have been reworked to allow them to do just this. My concern is
that many landlords are rather worried that if the DDA extends it's powers
to encomapass all properties which are rented out or a tenant becomes
disabled and conversions in the kitchen are required, they are possibly
going to incur expenses which they are not likely to recoup. Take the
following example:
A landlord takes in a tenant who uses a wheelchair, or an existing tenant
becomes a wheelchair-user either due to injury, age-related infirmity or
contracting a disabling condition such as MS etc. Having converted this
kitchen over, when that tenant leaves, the Landlord has 2 options; Incur the
cost of converting these kitchen units back into their original
'conventional' configuration, or from that point, decide to provide
accomodation for wheelchair-using tenants. Since wheelchair-using tenants
make up a small percentage of the market of those who are seeking a
property, the Landlord may have to wait a considerable anount of time before
gaining another tenant, which does not make it a very economic proposition.
What I have designed and built, are a range of kitchen units which can be
converted between one type of user and the other, at a very reasonable
increase on the price of buying in conventional kitchen units. Once
installed, conversion is a fairly straightforward proceedure which [if built
and installed in the way I have devised.] does not require a lot of time or
expense to reconfigure.
I have already contacted a number of kitchen unit manufacturers but they
generally say that this is a specalist section of the market and that they
are not interested in entering it, even though the production methods
required, make very few changes to their existing production methods and
that these 'Adaptive' units, would probably only increase the retail cost of
their existing units by 10 or at worst, 15%. Admittedly the design does NOT
cater for all the various types of disability but I would say that it
probably could accomodate around 80+% of them as i have developed the system
so far, and their use would in my opinion, in the long term, offer
considerable savings to whoever employed them.
So, is anyone interested, or know a company or organisation like a HA which
might be interested in using these in some of their properties?
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