‘I actually cried because I felt so emotional’: Campaigner’s joy over disabled toilet pledge for Gorleston
A very hot and sunny Gorleston beach. July 2016. Picture: James Bass - Credit: Eastern Daily Press © 2016
A bid to bring a fully accessible disabled toilet with a hoist and changing table to the borough has been successful.
Keith Bright tests the toilet facilities at Colchester Zoo. His wife Glenys says the lack of anything similar in Great Yarmouth stops disabled people from enjoying normal family life in the town. - Credit: Glenys Bright
Glenys Bright launched an effort to persuade Great Yarmouth Borough Council to invest in the facility and learned this week that it had won unanimous backing.
The 61-year-old of Lowestoft Road, Gorleston, said she was moved to tears by the support.
She said the equipment - likely to be installed at Gorleston beach close to the Pier Hotel - would make a huge difference to families deprived of a normal day out.
And she hit out at naysayers who told her the mission was pointless because it had been tried before.
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'People are very negative around politics but it is always worth trying,' she said.
Although an e-petition fell short of the number of signatures needed to trigger a committee debate, it went to members anyway and won full backing.
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Mrs Bright, whose husband Keith has MS, was moved to act not only for her own family but afer hearing about a mother who had to change her older child on a toilet floor - an experience that everyone found upsetting.
'On top of everything else people have to cope with thinking that they could be hurting a loved one who has to lift them is too much.
'I am just overwhelmed to think it is really going to happen.
'I actually cried because I felt so emotional, not just for us but for families who have to rush off home meaning that children do not get ordinary family time and days out.'
The scheme has been included in the 2017/2018 works budget but Mrs Bright hopes they can be installed this year.
