The Great Western Community Forest actively supports the concept of access for all. Once known as disabled access, modern thinking and practice is ensuring that access to the countryside and urban green space is meeting a higher standard, allowing more and more people whatever their ability, to get out and enjoy the great outdoors on offer in the Great Western Community Forest. Pioneered in publications such as the BT Countryside for All Standards and Guidelines from the Fieldfare Trust www.fieldfare.org.uk  it describes and set new standards for access to the countryside. More recently, in 2000, the Countryside Agency www.countryside.gov.uk published Sense and Accessibilty (publication CAX26 2000), describing how to improve access on countryside paths, routes and trails for people with mobility difficulties.

It’s no longer just about wheelchair access, modern battery powered wheelchairs and trikes can go much further and get to places that a few years ago were almost impossible to reach. However, uneven paths, woodlands and lakesides didn’t just exclude wheelchairs; young families with buggies and older people found it just as difficult to reach their favourite picnic spot and enjoy the local countryside on offer. Already, the country parks at Lydiard, Coate, Barbury and Stanton, managed by Swindon Borough Council Ranger Service are excellent samples of places you can go if you are elderly, a wheelchair user, or a young family with a pushchair. The parks at Lydiard and at Coate Water have ‘easi-riders’ battery powered carriages which are available to you by booking with the Rangers on 01793 771419.

The Great Western Community Forest, by working within and supported by our diverse partnership have been putting in place new facilities that ensure everyone who goes to a site, can get the most from their visit.

Examples of this can be experienced in sites across the Community Forest area including:

Nightingale Wood near South Marston where 3,500 metres of new path now take visitors to every part of this very exciting new woodland, owned and managed by Forest Enterprise. Easy access from the car park to this beautiful new woodland, which now also boasts a brand new bird hide overlooking a meandering stream and wildlife areas. Here you can pause for a rest, watch the birds and put your feet up. New benches will be installed along the route of the paths in the very near future, adding extra comfort and facilities for your visit.
Kingsdown Stratton, a new woodland, owned and planted by the Woodland Trust www.woodland-trust.org.uk  on the eastern side of Swindon close to the Crematorium offers good ‘access for all’ facilities to the visitor. From the car park, surfaced paths meander across level fields, leading you through one of the biggest new woodlands in the Great Western Community Forest.
Stanton Park near Stanton Fitzwarren, owned and managed by Swindon Borough Council, this restored 18th Century English landscaped park has it all, wide open wildflower meadows, a lake, extensive woodlands and a network of surfaced paths that take you to the very heart of some of the best countryside in the Community Forest.

The Great Western Community Forest will continue to work with our partners to promote where possible and feasible, the best possible access provision. As you have read, the work has already started.