A LOCALLY-based services company to the energy industries is hoping to significantly grow its business in Shetland over the next five to 10 years as major projects are expected to come to fruition. Speaking ahead of a second large oil installation decommissioning project due to.
spectacular landscapes, but much of it is off limits to people who use traditional wheelchairs. now one woman has launched a charity aiming to help more people access the national park. abi jayeloa reports. debbie north has always been passionate about the countryside, and spent many happy hours rambling with her husband, andy. he sadly died last year, but she was determined to keep doing what she loved, and to help other people in wheelchairs do the same. she set up access the dales in his memory. i wish andy was here to see it, because i know. ..i know he d be looking down and i know he d say, good one, kiddo. yeah, he d be very proud. and, you know, today, watching so many different types of wheelchair coming to this stunning location, it is a tear jerker, but tears of joy. the charity, launched this week,
there are lots of really simple things that can be done, that will have a really huge impact, and a lot of times sort of hear things like, oh, well, nobody s out there in a wheelchair , but if you can t access it, then you can t use it. and so it s kind of chicken and egg, and that s something that i think this is what access the dales are trying to change, and doing a fantasticjob of. and for debbie, this isjust the start. i know there are places that are just not going to be accessible, but where possible and when possible, itjust would be great that this place can grow, and that we can have more and more hubs around the place where everybody s welcome to the yorkshire dales. it s a landscape loved by many, and hopefully, from now, accessible to even more. that is a serious piece of kit. yeah, it is enabling places to be accessed that one before.
the yorkshire dales offer some of the uk s most spectacular landscapes, but much of it is off limits to people who use traditional wheelchairs. now one woman has launched a charity aiming to help more people access the national park. abi jayeloa reports. debbie north has always been passionate about the countryside, and spent many happy hours rambling with her husband, andy. he sadly died last year, but she was determined to keep doing what she loved, and to help other people in wheelchairs do the same. she set up access the dales in his memory. i wish andy was here to see it, because i know. ..i know he d be looking down and i know he d say, good one, kiddo. yeah, he d be very proud.
has funded i4 specially adapted all terrain wheelchairs. some of them are like the one debbie is using. they ll be loaned out from five hubs in the dales. today is the first visit here to gordale scar for many who would have found it difficult to access otherwise. there s so many people who i know, they re indoors right now, and they re not getting outside. and to get out and have a good bunch of people, and have a good old chat and a singalong as well, which we ve been singing on the way up, it s brilliant. completely impossible - with my normal wheelchair or other devices, completely out of the question. - so this is a machine that will transform lives. - it s a really lovely place here, but very hard to access in a normal chair, and very bumpy and uncomfortable. so it s really lovely to be out again. paralympic rower and cyclist rachel is an ambassador for the charity. i really do think it s critical that we look at changing access to the outside.