Tanni: A role model for holiday homes

By Mark Anstead
Posted: 2010/04/28

When the starting gun fires in today’s London Marathon Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson, winner of the wheelchair race six times, will be at the start gate commentating but next month she will be

BRITAIN’S most successful paralympian, Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson was born with spina bifida and has needed a wheelchair all her life.

After searching for 10 years for a holiday home that wouldn’t involve having to make compromises, Tanni and her husband Ian, 46, bought a two-bedroomed apartment at the end of 2008 in an accessible development called Q Wellbeing in Lividia, Cyprus, for 400,000 (£346,800). When the apartment is finished next month the couple plan to furnish it and start visiting for summer breaks and winter sun with their daughter Carys, eight. “When I was training abroad I always took the opportunity to look around areas to see if I could fi nd a holiday home,” says Tanni, 40, whose UK base is a four-bedroomed home in Eaglescliffe, near Middlesbrough. “I wanted something that would be easy for me but enjoyable for the whole family, which was a tall order.

“No matter where I looked I found homes that would involve compromises I wasn’t prepared to make. In some places ramps were put in only as an afterthought and in others even though the apartments had accessible bathrooms and kitchens, there would still be steps in the surrounding development.

“After looking on and off for 10 years I met Adam Thomas, who designs accessible kitchens, and he told me about a project he was involved with in Cyprus. The developers wanted to build an attractive luxury resort anyone could enjoy but which had accessibility built into the design rather than added later. I took a look and liked what I saw.”

Dame Tanni, who retired from racing three years ago, has often raised awareness about accessibility, sometimes inadvertently. In 2000 she was unable to accept her BBC Sports Personality Of The Year award because there was no ramp to the stage.

As an inspirational sportswoman who has won 11 gold medals in her career, Tanni says she hasn’t had to make too many adaptations to her own home but she does think carefully about location. Having lived for 10 years in the seaside town of Redcar, which she loved for its flat roads making wheelchair use easy, two years ago she moved 15 miles west to Eaglescliffe for better access to London.

In their five-bedroomed detached house in Redcar, which Tanni and Steve sold two years ago for £250,000, the couple installed a lift from the garage into a loft extension so that Tanni could reach the bedrooms in her wheelchair.

In their new detached four-bedroomed house, which they bought for £490,000 in 2008, they still have to identify the best place for a lift.

“I can cope without a lift at the moment by bumping myself up and down the stairs,” says Tanni, “but I know I won’t be able to do that for ever. However, I fell in love with this house for its big, open kitchen which makes it easy for me to wheel around. Thankfully we have wide doorways and no inner halls so the only other thing we did was put in a special shower seat.

Every wheelchair user has a different level of need. I can cope with kitchen wall cupboards, for example, because I can push myself up from my chair to sit on the worktop if I have to but that means I don’t put everyday things in them.

“When Steve and I have fi nished arguing about the best place for a lift we will definitely be putting one in and I want to knock down the wall between the kitchen and dining room so we just have one big space.”

Typical issues facing disabled users in the home include steps on the ground fl oor, wall switches that may be too high, bathrooms that are too small for a wheelchair and corridors that are too narrow. Outside parking spaces also need to be large enough for a wheelchair to roll up to a car’s passenger door.

During Tanni’s hunt for a holiday home in various locations of France and Spain she soon realised she could add to that list the need for easy-to-access swimming pools, gyms that have adequate equipment and long ramps so changes of level are easy to navigate.

“It’s not enough to plop wooden ramps over concrete steps because those ramps can be too steep for the infirm. Holidays are supposed to be relaxing so what you want is low gradients both in the resort and outside it if possible.

“In La Rochelle in France I liked some holiday homes but the town’s shops were on beautiful cobbled streets, a nightmare for a wheelchair user, and many of the restaurants had steps.

“Thankfully in Cyprus the mayor of Larnaca [which neighbours Lividia] has pledged to make the town accessible  to wheelchairs and it’s all pretty good  so far. It has wide promenades and accessible toilets along the beach. They are even building a wooden ramp down to the sea so that I can take myself down to the water’s edge without worrying about sand clogging my wheels.”

Tanni’s link to the Q Wellbeing project came through her patronage of The Lord’s Taverners Sports Wheelchair Sponsorship Scheme, sponsored by Q Wellbeing. When the developer asked Tanni to help design its recreation area she advised it about the gym and spa.

Having trained in gyms all over the world Tanni suggested avoiding equipment made only for the disabled, which would narrow the development’s appeal. Instead she recommended integrated equipment.

The development already included  an outdoor pool so Tanni proposed replacing the proposed indoor one with  a spa pool and a hoist system to help lift disabled people in and out. 

“Ten to 15 years from now I’m not going to be able to push myself up and down stairs at home,” says Tanni.

“My shoulders are a bit knackered from all the racing I have done and as I get older I may not be able to cope with steep gradients either  so this development ticks all the boxes for me.”

The complex of 41 one and two-bedroomed apartments lies six miles from Larnaca airport and just two-and-a half miles from an accessible beach. 

The apartments are being built on three levels in  two phases and there are 14 for sale from the first phase, which is nearing completion, with another 
20 available to buy off-plan for second phase building.

Prices range from e278,000 (£241,048) for a one-bedroomed apartment  to e565,000 (£489,901) for a two-bed with a large, covered veranda.

Tanni has bought a mid-sized two-bedroomed apartment on the third  floor with a large veranda and views of the sea.

“It’s nice to know I have a place in Lividia I can go to three or four times  a year and in the winter months,” she says. “Maybe as I get older we may 
even move out and live in sunny Cyprus permanently.”
 
● MORE INFORMATION: qwellbeing.com, 0844 243 6363.