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Mobility campaigner praises access to Yorkshire Dales

Yorkshire Dales National Park Debbie North with Malhamdale Area Ranger Rob AshfordYorkshire Dales National Park
The access improvements to the path in Malham were funded by a Removing Barriers grant from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

A mobility campaigner has praised the addition of wide gates to a path through hay meadows in the Yorkshire Dales National Park.

Kissing gates on the path in Malham have been replaced with wide gates which opened both ways.

Debbie North, a member of the Yorkshire Dales Access Forum, said the change was "fantastic".

The path and the availability of all-terrain wheelchairs for hire was a cause for celebration, Ms North said.

Ms North who began campaigning for better access soon after she began using a wheelchair in 2010, said the old kissing gates were "totally inaccessible" for somebody in an all terrain wheelchair because they were far too narrow.

Geograph/Colin Smith Signpost in the Yorkshire DalesGeograph/Colin Smith
Funding will also be be used to design a path through Freeholders' Wood near Aysgarth Falls National Park Visitor Centre, which would enable wheelchair users to access the lower falls for the first time, a spokesperson for the National Park said

The new gates open both ways which Ms North said made things a lot easier because "with a gate that opens only one way you have to reverse to get through it".

The Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority's access and recreation officer, Rachel Briggs, said: "The route in Malham is easily followed from the Malham National Park Visitor Centre, so people can feel reassured there is somewhere to park and somewhere to go to the toilet."

Malhamdale area ranger Rob Ashford (pictured above with Ms North), added: "Access For All is one of the National Park Authority's high priority programmes and it is beginning to show.

"Good access to the countryside improves physical and mental health and the Malham meadows walk is one of many where we are starting to improve access for disabled people."

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