An 85-year-old woman was forced to wait over an hour for help with her shopping due to the lack of wheelchair trolleys in a Barry supermarket. Mavis Millward and her partner Dave Woodhams regularly shop at the Tesco superstore on Stirling Road but were left "disgusted" after they were left waiting for over an hour to do their weekly shop last week.
The store in Barry has two customer wheelchairs, one of which is broken, and only one wheelchair trolley. This means that when one wheelchair and trolley is in use, any other wheelchair user will have to use a broken wheelchair and be assisted by a member of staff to help with their shopping, which is exactly what happened to Mavis.
Mavis and Dave requested a member of staff to help assist Mavis in the wheelchair while Dave used a standard trolley to do their shopping, but Dave told WalesOnline it took over an hour for someone to become available. He said: "I was disgusted. It was over an hour that we sat there waiting for a manager to help us."
As well as having to wait for a manager, Dave said that the need for a member of staff's help was "inconvenient" in the first place and added: "You are under pressure and forget to pick up things."
The wheelchair that was used by Mavis, who struggles with pain in her left leg, was missing a left footrest, meaning she had to rest both feet on the right footrest. Dave said: "Her leg was painful as she suffers with it and, being 85 in August, [it] was uncomfortable." He said the situation had created problems non-wheelchair users would not have to face. "Able-bodied people don't have a problem, they have enough trolleys for them but disabled people haven't."
Dave said they had been told a wheelchair trolley was stolen from the store in Barry but he said a lack of viable wheelchairs and wheelchair trolleys had been an issue for the couple for several months, dating back before Christmas 2022. He added that the issue has made him potentially think about shopping elsewhere. "I said to the manager, I feel like saying sod it I'm going to shop in Morrisons."
A spokesperson for Tesco said: “We want everyone to feel welcome at Tesco and we are really sorry that we did not have a wheelchair trolley available at our Barry Superstore when this customer visited. This was due to a theft. Our colleagues did their best to help the customer and provided some flowers and a gesture of goodwill to apologise.”
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