New accessible trail for Beacon Hill park
OVER the past 18 months, Loughborough-based community arts organisation Charnwood Arts has been working with Safe, Well, Happy – a social group, based in Charnwood, which seeks to provide opportunities for adults with learning disabilities to be active within their local community.
Through regular creative sessions with lead project artist Lucy Stevens and Community Arts and Partnerships Manager Nicola Middler, the group worked through ideas together as to how they may be able to work towards feeling more confident and able to visit different places.
The focus of the project was Charnwood Forest.
Together, the group began to pay regular visits to Beacon Hill to explore different paths and trails, assessing them along the way for safety and accessibility - making maps, drawings and recording the sights and sounds they experienced along the way.
The group realised they wanted to design their own trail at Beacon Hill, which they had identified as being a circuit within the forest that they were physically and mentally able to achieve.
Charnwood Arts applied for a grant from the Intelligent Energy Charitable Trust, which was successful and made it possible for the project to be realised.
Over the course of a year, the group met regularly to come up with designs, explore shape and colour, develop their creative skills and to be the decision makers as to how the final trail would look, right down to where the markers would go.
Working alongside the rangers team from the Leicestershire Country Parks, the final plans were put in place and the trail has been installed this month.
Nicola Middler, Community Arts and Partnerships Manager at Charnwood Arts, said: “This project is so important because it is enabling people with different needs to create something that will help them to better access their local, natural environment and will also help other who are living with a disability.
“It’s vital that this sort of project is collaborative and really directed by the people it will benefit. Through the creative sessions and visits to the forest, we have noticed a huge growth in confidence from group members, a noticeable positive impact on their wellbeing.
“We are excited to launch the accessible trail in Spring 2023 and to see the wider positive impact it will have!”