Age friendly Whalley Range and Chorlton Constitution April 2016

Age-friendly Business Charter

The idea of the Charter is to ensure that businesses and groups take account of older people’s needs in terms of recognising barriers and addressing them by looking at the wider accessibility of their premises and care of their customers/service users, including offering a warm welcome and being patient if an older person is confused or forgetful.

What the Age-friendly Business Charter sets out to do is to allow businesses/venues who sign up to promote themselves as providing age-friendly services by displaying a postcard in their window or on the premises – and becoming part of our website/database list of Age-friendly places/services in Whalley Range.

Obviously insurance issues and customer safety means that not every shop or office can offer the use of toilet facilities – but many venues may be able to fulfil that part of the criteria anyway: e.g. care homes, health centres, dentists, social housing providers, mosques, churches, temples, cafes and schools etc.

So a business could provide a seat for an older person who is shopping in the area,  just a fold-up chair available to be used on request, to be free of trip hazards, with decent lighting and accessibility of products, accessibility for wheelchair users where possible, or support from staff if the venue is not accessible,  prescription collection and home delivery of shopping etc.

The accessibility of a venue is only one part of signing up to the charter – it is really a request for all businesses and organisations to look at their premises and services in general – and will also give them free publicity as it’s an opportunity for them to promote what they do.

Of course if the accessible venues meet other criteria (no trip hazards etc.) they will be able to become part of the list: the checklist on the Charter will be a guide to available services for each organisation.

For an older person to recognise that many (or preferably all!) of their local shops have signed up as being ‘age-friendly’ would increase their confidence in getting out of the house to shop locally – even more important for residents living on or close to Withington Road since the demise of the regular 16 bus that took them into Chorlton.

Older people are an important and growing consumer group – so it makes sense for local businesses to encourage and support the “shop local” ethos – and of course becoming part of a recognised group that demonstrates a commitment and respect for the needs of older people is a good way to promote local services.

AF Business Charter DraftWRCH