By Paul Nicholls
I’ve been a wheelchair user for the past two decades and have just returned from two nights at Sherwood Pines, a woodland estate that’s part of Forestry England and I found plenty of wonderful wheelchair-friendly walks here.
As I hear a rustle to my left, I glance over and a squirrel leaps in front of the wide, silvery and smooth path I’m on. My partner Erica and I are on a 5-mile walk around Sherwood Pines on one of two new trampers on the site, a vehicle designed to tackle all-terrain for wheelchair users.
Forestry England have spent the last four years and over ten million pounds improving access and we’ve come to test it out.
There are 3 official wheelchair-friendly walks at Sherwood Pines that are mapped out, but we find ourselves off-piste more than once – so much of the site is smooth and easy to access on the tramper.
And the good news, these improved access walks are everywhere with the official blurb citing that 99 percent of England are no further than a 1 hours drive from a site.
On gathering our blankets for our return drive home, we’ve both seen a marked reduction in screen-time and leave feeling refreshed having put in over 10 miles over the course of 48 hours.
