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	TX: 09.04.04 - RNIB SET TO CLOSE ITS HOTELS PRESENTER: DIANA MADILL

	THE ATTACHED TRANSCRIPT WAS TYPED FROM A RECORDING AND NOT COPIED FROM AN ORIGINAL SCRIPT. BECAUSE OF THE RISK OF MISHEARING AND THE DIFFICULTY IN SOME CASES OF IDENTIFYING INDIVIDUAL SPEAKERS, THE 麻豆约拍 CANNOT VOUCH FOR ITS COMPLETE ACCURACY MADILL Now the Royal National Institute of the Blind runs two hotels for the blind and partially sighted - one in Eastbourne and one in Blackpool. But now they're to close - they're too expensive to maintain and not enough visitors are coming to stay, in fact they lost the charity just over a quarter of a million pounds in the last financial year alone. However, both hotels attract a solid core of loyal customers and for them the decision to close down is hugely disappointing. Anna Egan reports the one in Eastbourne, where she met Alex Tillier, who's been coming to the RNIB Palm Court for the past 14 years. TILLIER My wife and I we spend usually eight weeks each year here. I've never been to any other hotel. I met my wife here actually. You're so welcome, I just - there aren't any words really to describe what I feel about it. ACTUALITY - HOTEL NOISE EGAN Alex Tillier. The retired piano tuner is one of 30 guests staying at the RNIB Palm Court hotel in Eastbourne. Another holiday maker - Ted Shapland - doesn't want to go anywhere else. SHAPLAND You've got to learn the town, you've got to learn the way round the hotel, if you're going for a week's holiday you're spending the first week going round trying to learn your way about the place. Whereas here, to be honest, I don't think about getting around, I just do it. EGAN So this is the main reception area? SHAPLAND Yes they have notices up in Braille - Non-smoking Lounge - it says in Braille there. And across here you've got a lounge with talking books and a machine to play them on in here. ACTUALITY Mains power on. SHAPLAND They're very good now the new ones. ACTUALITY Track one. EGAN This CD player is just one of the facilities on offer to help blind and partially sighted guests to get their bearings. Angela Bates is the duty manager. BATES We have colour coded floors to enable those that do have their sight to be able to see the floors. We have a talking menu everyday that states the different choices of food we have available. ACTUALITY We have chicken soup, fruit juice or grapefruit, mandarin and pineapple cocktail. BATES And within the bedrooms we have talking clocks, large faced Braille clocks, we have big button telephones as well. EGAN Let's go and have a look upstairs. ACTUALITY Doors opening. BATES After you. EGAN It's a bit tight in here isn't it, a bit of a squeeze. SHAPLAND It's a maximum of four people. EGAN Four small people maybe. SHAPLAND This is number three in Braille. EGAN For Kathleen Wicks who's been coming here for 22 years the human touch is what really matters. WICKS You're treated as a normal person. I mean the staff here all know how to treat us, it really is home from home. And I've been coming with a friend and we had hoped to do it for many more years. But the RNIB seem to have taken it into their own hands to spend money on other things. SHAPLAND We're going to the third floor. ACTUALITY Third floor. SHAPLAND This is where we get out here. ACTUALITY Doors opening. SHAPLAND Can we just come out please? EGAN The RNIB says there's just no longer enough demand for this hotel. Sue Thomas is head of leisure, policy and development. THOMAS There is a move towards integration and more and more people are wanting to go abroad or to go to other places. We run a holiday service and when people phone us up we get hundreds of enquiries every month of people wanting to take a holiday and when we ask them - Where would you like to go? - they don't so much tend to say just Blackpool and Eastbourne but they want to go abroad, they want to ski, they want to do everything that everybody else does. EGAN John Wellsman has been blind since he was 12. Now aged 40 he says hotels like Palm Court aren't for him. WELLSMAN I want to go to the hotel of my choice in maybe the resort of my choice and I'm quite happy, as I have done, to be put up with some of the sort of shortcomings of some of the staff and some of the facilities just to have what I would determine is a normal holiday, not have to pigeonhole myself and go somewhere maybe like Eastbourne just to get a holiday adapted for my needs as a blind person. SHAPLAND Here we are, in we come. There is an alarm thing in there, that contacts the office if there's anybody in trouble they ring that and there's always somebody there that'll come up. EGAN And what about your talking alarm clock - do you use that? SHAPLAND I do. ACTUALITY - TALKING ALARM SHAPLAND Twelve o five. Brilliant. EGAN There are four other specially adapted hotels run by the charity Action for Blind People. In Bognor Regis, the Lake District, Weston-super-Mare and Teignmouth in Devon. SHAPLAND I'm really cut up about it because we don't want to go anywhere else. It's just the fact that we are of a certain age group, we should be catered for, I'm not suggesting the younger blind shouldn't be but they don't need so much catering for as we do. EGAN From October the next phase of the Disability Discrimination Act will become law. It means hoteliers must make sure their buildings are accessible to all disabled people. THOMAS It is never going to be popular to close a service that is really loved, it is very painful thing to do but we have to work with what we've got, we cannot produce money where there isn't money. We have a very heavy responsibility, if you like, to use the donations that we receive in the wisest possible way for the benefit of as many people as possible. SHAPLAND Here we go, make sure the door's shut, that's it. ACTUALITY Door closing. MADILL And that report from Eastbourne was by Anna Egan. Back to the Transcripts homepage Back to the You and Yours homepage The 麻豆约拍 is not responsible for external websites

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