A member of Elevate had been been investigating accessible paths in her neck of the woods in anticipation of her outdoor wheelchair. 

This put her in touch with Ella Meecham who is an Assistant County Trails Officer.  She offered to meet our member to explain a project aiming to boost accessibility working with Norfolk Wildlife Trust etc. 

Later it was suggested that Ella visits Elevate to talk to us.  This is planned for 19th October and will take place alongside the usual social activities etc.

Not everyone with ME/CFS is well enough to get out the house but those that can often find it therapeutic to be surrounded by nature.  Although there some green areas with good accessibility, I’m sure many people with this condition will tell of the challenges they have faced which can include:

• Finding a suitable place that isn’t too far to travel.
• Paths being too bumpy and causing a lot of pain in joints and other areas.
• Disabled parking and toilets availability.

More about the project

The project is called “Lift Off” and involves working with NWT and other sites like Sculthorpe to do accessibility audits. They are be running work trials for those who are out of employment and education (and have sufficient health and ability) and would like to gain some outdoor work experience, as well as perhaps needing a confidence boost.

“The idea is that we will carry out a number of access audits on a variety of sites across Norfolk including some Norfolk Wildlife Trust Sites, Foxley Wood being one of them. From the information we gather about the trails around the sites such as surface type, gradients, path widths etc we will produce a booklet with information about the access to the site. The NWT can then use these to share information about the site’s access. “