DORNOCH BEACH WHEELCHAIRS

Let's get us all to the beach

This service is unique to the North of Scotland and where better to build this facility than the beautiful town of Dornoch?

People of any age can find themselves unable to access our coastline and beaches. Physical disability can arise for many reasons, from lifelong health conditions to general infirmity, accidents and many more reasons.

After two years of hard work by Chair Isla Fullerton-Smith and a dedicated team of volunteers, DBW was up and running in Autumn 2020.

The beach wheelchairs are free of charge, available from our newly built shed based at the Dornoch Beach car park and local volunteers’ man this.

State of the art wheelchairs

The facility has five state of the art wheelchairs.

All of the wheelchairs have been specially designed to enable individuals with disabilities to get back on the beach. Unlike a standard manual wheelchair, they have large rubber wheels that move easily over the sand. Some of the chairs can also be pushed into the sea to allow the user to enjoy a paddle.

In 2022 we took deliver of our X8 Extreme Powered Chair. This gives much more freedom to our users, it has controls that can be altered to suit the users needs or can be driven by your carer. It has proved very popular and we would like to add another to our collection.

Having these chairs has been life changing to many people who have found it difficult to access the beach in the past. They are free to hire and since we opened in 2020 we have been able to help nearly 300 people to access our beach.

We are very grateful to the Community Council who have funded a state-of-the-art, outdoor, hydraulic hoist to ensure safe transfer from the users chair into the beach chair. We also have an indoor hoist and a changing table.

MAKING A DIFFERENCE

As with anything new, committed volunteers, funding and resources were needed to get things off the ground.

The team have landscaped the area around the car park and created new paths that ensure safe access onto the beach.

This area now has new benches and picnic tables that are suitable for wheelchair users, a big sandpit with a toy library so families can play safely and picnic there, and we have built a brick barbeque area where visitors can cook safely without risking fire.

We fundraised for 2 years to purchase our new sensory, musical equipment at the play park. It is suitable for people in wheelchairs to freely move around and has proved very popular with adults and children.

Funding our project

The big step forward came when “The Beatrice Wind Farm” awarded a large part of the funds needed.

We now hold charitable status and are overseen by a board of trustees.

The fundraising efforts at DBW are continuous and to add to our four manual wheelchairs in May 2022, we will took delivery from Australia an X8 Extreme Powered chair, this will enable so many more clients to access the beach and is proving very popular with our users.

The committee run a market stall selling branded merchandise and are prominent in the community, enthusiastically raising funds in order to make Dornoch Beach Wheelchairs a sustainable long-term service.

We have had many enquiries about our project, so it’s clear that there’s a demand and the two nursing homes in town are looking forward to being able to take their residents out to enjoy this facility when the threat of Covid is over.

It has been a very rewarding project to develop and we are very proud of what has been achieved to date.

With many elderly people living in our town we feel that due to lockdowns during the pandemic the need to access our wonderful coastline is even more important.

“It was such a wonderful day, I have been ranting on to my carers and anyone who will listen to me. Lots of friends are jealous of my experience and how easy it was to get there. Sitting on the beach was such a wonderful achievement, it really raised my spirits.”

“You have created such a wonderful set up there, the potential for giving pleasure to hundreds of people is so exciting, well done!!”

“I’m sure you have started something which will continue into other coastal areas in the Highlands. Thank you for giving me a life experience I will never forget.”