Published as a double page spread in the Glasgow Evening Times yesterday is a story about one of our tenants, Edward Stanton. It is an inspirational story about the difficulties Edward faced as a wheelchair user, navigating around things like potholes and broken paving stones in his local area and what he did to change this.

 

In Edward's words: “I wanted to make it easier for people in Glasgow who use a wheelchair to get around independently. I know people who had nearly overturned in their wheelchairs. My friend Margaret’s chair nearly overturned on a hole because the front wheels got stuck in it. Other people have been stopped dead in their tracks in their chairs unable to move until someone has helped them.”

 

Edward went to great lengths to improve the accessibility of his local pedestrian paths in Anderston. He approached Glasgow City Council and persuaded them to conduct a pilot scheme to create the city's first proper wheelchair route. Hopefully this will be the first of many similar schemes to improve accessibility for wheelchair users across local authorities in Scotland.

 

You can read the article online here: Evening Times Article 

You can also read more about the project in our latest tenant newsletter: Messenger Article  

Has anyone else faced similar issues? Do you think there are other Local Authorities we should approach to create wheelchair accessible routes?