Group aiming to improve accessibility to parks

Campaigners including Chantelle (back right) and Colin Matthews (front right) want better accessibility to parks

A charity hopes to improve accessibility to parks for about 200,000 people who struggle to "get into their local green space".

To celebrate Your Park Bristol & Bath's fifth anniversary, the charity has launched "it's biggest campaign yet".

Charity bosses hope to raise £30,000 over the next six weeks to kickstart the work.

"Physical accessibility for wheelchair users like myself, and people with other impairments is very patchy - there's no consistency," said charity worker Colin Matthews.

Cracked and uneven paths were identified as a common problem in parks for disabled people

The group plans to create "two exemplar parks", one for disabled people, and one for women and girls in each city.

Smoothing down pavements and adding more lighting are among other measures they hope to fund.

Mr Matthews, who led an audit of local parks, said overgrown park entrances and uneven and damaged surfaces were among the main issues.

"I'd be looking at the main entranceways, the paths - whether they're nice and flat - not broken up by any potential obstacles like tree roots or drain covers. Whether gates are nice and easy to open, and whether they open both ways," he added.

"When we were carrying out the access audit we were asking our participants, who were disabled people and carers, about the barriers that would impact them, and that varies from person to person."

Among those who have taken part in the audit is Chantelle, a mum-of-three from Hartcliffe in south Bristol.

Two of her children are disabled, and she joined the group in the hope it would help make her local park more accessible.

"It's also to deal with anti-social behaviour that makes the children feel unsafe," she said.

"We want to provide more lighting here (at Millennium Green in Hartcliffe), which would be brilliant.

"It would mean the local community could keep a closer eye on their park to keep it safe."

The group is also creating a "best practice tool kit" to help councils and other authorities get involved.