A major hotel group has apologised to a Paralympic swimmer and her father after a broken lift meant they were unable to access their first floor hotel room.
The BBC reported that Ellie Challis and dad Paul said they waited two hours at the hotel in Romford, east London, but were told no other accommodation could be found.
The pair told the BBC they had no option but to make a 200-mile journey home to Manchester in the middle of the night.
Premier Inn offered a refund and a complimentary stay but Ellie and Paul said the recompense was not enough.
Ellie became Paralympics GB’s youngest medallist at Tokyo 2020. She continues to hold one world record and multiple British bests.
Ellie uses a wheelchair and told the BBC she had booked a standard room for her and her father to stay in, because she often finds the wet rooms in accessible rooms uncomfortable.
She said: “If I was on my own, I would have been left at 19 to find myself with somewhere to stay at 1am.”
Ellie added that she was often met with similar obstacles at train stations and while boarding planes: “It is just irritating. Most of the time I get a ‘sorry’ that is not really ‘sorry’, and it is the same next time.”
Paul added: “There is no point in saying ‘sorry’ if you’re not going to do something about it in the future. My fight is to try and get these things cured for the future – not just for Ellie, for anybody, and at the moment these things are going to happen again.”
In a statement published by the BBC, Premier Inn said: “When a guest books an accessible room, this automatically triggers a pre-stay call to make sure the room booked is the most suitable for them.
“However, we understand some people with accessibility issues on occasion do prefer to book our standard rooms.
“Where this is the case we have an accessible email helpline, which again helps ensure the room allocated is the best fit for individual needs.
“In this instance for example, we would have prioritised this booking as a ground floor room so that in rare event an issue with the lift did arise, access would not have caused a problem.”
In response, Challis said it should not be up to her to contact the email helpline and bookings should be simplified so wheelchair users can book a ground floor room.
