Guest blog by Charles van Berckel, Co-Founder of AbleStay. 
Our 14 year old son Kit suffered a brain injury at birth which resulted in him having quadraplegic cerebral palsy. He’s a bright an active boy in main stream education, is a full time wheelchair user and is non-verbal.
We have always found it very difficult to find places that meet Kit’s needs in terms of accommodation. My wife Jo also runs a FB group, Accessible Holidays & Day Trips, which now has about 20,000 qualified members. In October 2019 a lady by the name of Emma Moss who has MND posted on the site asking if anyone knew of somewhere she could stay for a weekend break to London with her family. She asked for a profiling bed, ceiling hoist, height adjustable bath, changing table, wash/dry peninsula toilet, wheelchair access throughout and additional bedrooms for children and a carer, all the things we ideally need when travelling away from home for the night.
We waited to see what response there was from our community, but there was no response. We contacted many hotels in London and Airbnb but there is nothing that meets that level of need. So we decided to do something about it and that was the start of AbleStay.
We had a clear vision for the project. Disabilities vary so much that it is difficult to meet the needs of everyone. AbleStay focuses on those with complex physical disabilities that need the highest level of mobility support to enable them to stay away from home for the night.
Having decided roughly where we needed to look, based on access to Waterloo station I started looking at properties. After a couple of months I came across a bungalow in a place called Worcester Park, and as soon as I walked in my imagination fired up and I could see the potential of what could be achieved with some work.
The biggest challenge was securing planning permission for change of use from a residential property to one that is classed as a hotel / guest house. This took 12 months longer than we planned and cost us an unplanned additional £30,000 in mortgage payments, council tax, insurance and utililities. However, once that was granted in January this year, work got underway in earnest with a complete remodelling of the inside of the house and the building of the accessible bathroom.
Works finally finished on Sunday 18th September with the builders leaving at 9pm that evening – with our first guests arriving on Monday 19th – it really was our own version of DIY SOS! 
The house is designed to meet the needs of those with more complex physical disabilities. It has 3 bedrooms and sleeps 6. The accessible bedroom has two fully profiling beds and a ceiling hoist that transfers into the fully accessible bathroom. This has an accessible shower area, a height adjustable bath, shower/changing trolley, peninsular wash/dry toilet and postural supportive toileting / shower chairs.
The second bedroom provides either two singles or a super king and the third, two singles.
There is a fully accessible kitchen with a rise and fall main cooking and work surface. The whole house is wheelchair accessible including the decked area in the garden. 
Our original idea was to put one into London and then turn to other cities across the UK where there is also a total lack of provision. But seeing the level of demand we’re experiencing, not only from the UK market, but from overseas visitors wanting to visit London, but haven’t been able to for the lack of somewhere suitable to stay, we could create ten similar ones and not even scratch the surface. Our long-term goal is to ensure there is an AbleStay holiday home in every UK city where people wish to visit.
The project has only been possible by the incredibly generous financial support of our community and that of our suppliers, including Jiraffe with the amazing donation of two Rifton HTS chairs.
We look forward to welcoming more families and those living with a disability in the future. All information and booking can be found on our website, www.ablestay.co.uk
This guest blog is part of our 40 stories for 40 years’ series, celebrating our partnerships over the years. Click here to read more blogs in this series.
