Case Study: Age Concern Rural Access Project

Amount awarded: £8,480

Rural Access visit to the Otterburn Training AreaThis project contributes directly to the National Park purpose of promoting opportunities for enjoyment and understanding of the special qualities of the Park, and offers a partnership working approach to delivering those opportunities to a new target audience.

The Rural Access Project is managed by Age Concern Northumberland to offer opportunities for rurally isolated older people to get out and about in a sustainable manner. The project uses community bus transport, adapted to be easily accessible for less abled users such as the Rural Access Project service users.

In 2008, an opportunity was offerred to Age Concern to take some of their service users on a unique visit to Simonside, as part of the wider Simonside Project.  This visit was exceptionally well received and out of that was born the idea of developing further opportunities for these rurally isolated older people to experience the National Park.

Working closely with Community Enterprise staff, an initial programme of visits has been delivered during summer 2009, taking in a number of locations throughout the National Park and Action Areas, including the Otterburn Training Area, College Valley, and Barrowburn haymeadows in the northern area, and Bellingham Heritage Centre, The Black House at Catcleugh, and Steel Rigg and Walltown in the southern area.

The full programme will deliver up to 20 visits across the National Park area, allowing for valued opportunities for this specific target audience to access areas which they may never have been to before, or have not been able to access for a number of years. The visits to date have proven very popular, and have provided an opportunity for the Rural Access Project to encourage more male service users to join in, a key target for the project.