Home care provider opens its second fully accessible hotel for disabled people

A care provider has transformed a landmark hotel in Llandudno into a luxurious, fully accessible holiday destination for disabled people, their care workers and families.

Safehands Holidays is part of the Blackpool-based Safehands Group of companies, which offers a variety of services, ranging from domiciliary care, children’s day nurseries, mobile creche facilities and accessible holidays.

In 2009, with support from Yorkshire Bank, it opened The New Mayfair in Blackpool, the UK’s first fully accessible hotel for disabled people, their care workers, friends and families. This is the only hotel in the UK to be Care Quality Commission registered.

Safehands has now opened The Esplanade Hotel in Llandudno, which lays claim to having former Prime Minister Harold Wilson and the Duke of Kent among its previous guests.

Paul Manning, managing director of the Safehands Group, said: “We wanted to transform the type of hotel accommodation available to disabled customers and the feedback we’ve received from customers has been overwhelmingly positive. When we acquired our first hotel on the seafront in Blackpool, this type of facility wasn’t something that had been tested elsewhere but it quickly proved to be highly sought after.”

It can be “prohibitively expensive to fund a hotel like this, as it is impossible to buy a building that is fit-for-purpose”, according to Mr Manning. “At The Esplanade, which has listed building status, we made an investment of £3.5m to purchase the asset and complete a major refurbishment of the hotel, even with our own building company on board. But we opened the order book in the middle of January and have already exceeded £300,000 in bookings so far,” he said.

Like its Blackpool counterpart, The Esplanade sits on a very prominent position on the seafront.

Each of the 40 guest rooms have modern fully accessible shower facilities with shower chair/commodes and a significant number of rooms have an electric profile bed with built-in bedsides and either overhead tracking hoist or electric manual hoists.

Ian Hardman, head of Yorkshire Bank’s Business and Private Banking Centre in Preston, which provided a funding package of £2.25m to assist the renovation and refurbishment of the landmark Llandudno hotel, said: “Safehands Corporation is one of the UK’s most established care groups. Not only is it focused on providing its customers with the highest quality of care but it also identifies and fills gaps in the market.

“The development of Safehands Holidays is the perfect example of the success that can be achieved by listening to your customers and being understanding of their needs.”

For more information about the hotel go to http://safehandsholidays.co.uk/llandudno/llandudno-hotel.php