Yellow Trail

Vibrant painted posts create accessible route for all

A new accessible trail has been installed at Lower Beacon Hill in Leicestershire which has been created by adults with learning disabilities in collaboration with Charnwood Arts as part of their ongoing partnership with Charnwood Forest Geopark.

Over the past 18 months, Charnwood Arts have been working with Safe, Well, Happy – a social group, based in Charnwood, which seeks to provide opportunities for adults with learning disabilities to be active within their local community. Through regular creative sessions (with lead project artist Lucy Stevens and Community Arts and Partnerships Manager Nicola Middler) the group worked through ideas together as to how they may be able to work towards feeling more confident and able to visit different places, with Charnwood Forest as a focus.

Together, the group began to pay regular visits to Beacon Hill to explore different paths and trails, assessing them along the way for safety and accessibility - making maps, drawings and recording the sights and sounds they experienced along the way. When the group realised that they wanted to design their own trail at Beacon Hill, which they had identified as being a circuit within the forest that they were physically and mentally able to achieve, Charnwood Arts applied for a grant from the Intelligent Energy Charitable Trust, which was successful and made it possible for the project to be realised.

Over the course of a year, the group met regularly to come up with designs, explore shape and colour, develop their creative skills and to be the decision makers as to how the final trail would look, right down to where the way-finding posts would go. Working alongside the rangers team from the Leicestershire Country Parks, the final plans were put in place and the trail was installed May 2023.

Visit the trail at Lower Beacon Hill, Woodhouse Eaves, Loughborough LE12 8TA.