AbleStay, Worcester Park, London.

AbleStay is a registered charity with the mission of providing fully accessible holiday accommodation for people with complex physical disabilities and their families. AbleStay purchased and renovated its first property, a fully wheelchair accessible, single storey holiday home in Worcester Park in South West London. The three-bedroom house has a bright open plan accessible kitchen, dining and living area, with bi-fold doors to a south facing garden terrace, and a large accessible wetroom/bathroom.

Founders, Charles and Jo van Berckel, were motivated to create a space that would enable many families to visit London for the first time. They appointed Motionspot to help them create a bathroom that was highly functional as well as aesthetically in keeping with the rest of the home for the quarter of a million people in the UK with complex physical disabilities. These include:

• Cerebral palsy
• Motor neurone disease (MND)
• Muscular dystrophies (MD)
• Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA)
• Brain injury
• Spinal cord injury

Award-winning

In July 2023 AbleStay won the Accessibility Award at The Caterer's CATEYS Awards, with the judges describing it as a "shining example of design-led accessible accommodation and one that has a perfect combination of a commitment to its guests while being a commercial opportunity."

In October 2023 AbleStay was recognised as exemplifying the ‘Gold Standard’ for accessible style and design when it won both the Best Accessible Toilet/Bathroom Award and the Above and Beyond Award at the Blue Badge Access Awards. The judges said it has “a ‘wheelchair friendly everything’ for a truly accessible stay which delivers the stylish BBAA ‘wow’ factor!”