Your Shout: Rod Taylor, Barclays Hotels and Leisure Team

It's the day of reckoning, and by now you should have looked at those quaint steps and cosy alcoves that are the essence of old English pubs and smaller hotels, and

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think how a person with disabilities sees them. From tomorrow (1 October) business owners risk heavy fines if they haven't considered phase three of the 1995 Disability Discrimination Act. Businesses must make "reasonable adjustments" to their premises to allow access for disabled people. These will depend on the size of the business and relative cost of any improvements, plus common sense. But no business is too small to forgo the implications. It's important to show disabled customers you've at least thought about them, even if you've been unable to provide everything. And that doesn't just mean wheelchair users, who represent only 600,000 of the 8.7 million disabled people in the UK. Often it's attitudes rather than furniture that need changing, and simple things like speaking slowly and clearly so customers can lip-read. Businesses are not allowed to absorb the cost of any "reasonable adjustments" in inflated prices, so once they've decided on changes, they should share their strategy with their lender, who should be able to help them restructure their funding. The charity Scope is running a Free2Pee campaign encouraging disabled people to visit businesses on the eve of 1 October and name and shame those not prepared. Barclays has sponsored a video in partnership with the Centre for Accessible Environments, which shows how to conduct audits that establish how prepared businesses are for customers with all sorts of disabilities. It is available at www.cae.org.uk. It also makes financial sense to have a reputation for being accessible. Disabled people have a combined income of about £50m - as long as they can get in.