Who we are and what we do: The Disabled Ramblers is a small charity working across England and Wales to help make the countryside more accessible to people with limited mobility – which benefits everyone. We are all volunteers and we campaign both to raise awareness of the needs of people with limited mobility, especially with regard to access to the countryside, and to organise a programme of rambles for people who use mobility scooters.
Covid- 19 / Coronavirus We will run Rambles only when it is safe to do so.
Our rambles Our Calendar of National Rambles and Regional Rambles can be found here.
National Rambles (in green) happen over one week in most months from Spring to Autumn, comprising 4 rambles, Monday to Friday, with Wednesday as a day off for members to see the local area for themselves Each ramble costs £8 payable on booking. Members arrange their own accommodation.
Regional rambles, (in blue) are led by long standing members as one-off days. Members are notified approximately 4 weeks ahead of time when these rambles become available. On these rambles there are no mobility scooters for hire.
All our rambles are checked and graded into Categories 1-3, according to difficulty and Risk Assessments are completed. Our rambles are designed for people using mobility scooters
Scooters and powerchairs. For our National Rambles we have a small number of loan scooters, called ‘Trampers’ which are heavy duty mobility scooters and are suitable for most types of terrain. These scooters can be hired, by members at a cost of £20 per day if they do not have an appropriate scooter for the ramble. However, they must be over 18 and have sufficient upper body strength and powers of concentration to manage a scooter safely. New members have priority in booking scooters at the beginning of the year. Due to demand, Loan Scooters are limited to 8 rambles per person per year unless there is spare capacity. New users of Loan Scooters will have a short assessment on the day of their first ramble.
If you want to use your own powerchair for rambles it is sensible to check with our Rambles Organiser, Paula Brunt, email paula@disabledramblers.co.uk in advance to ensure your chair is suitable for the rambles you are interested in. Cat. 2 rambles should be suitable for robust outdoor powerchairs – but be aware that bad weather might cause the track to become muddy, slippery, and covered in puddles. Very few powerchairs are suitable for Cat 3 rambles so do please contact Paula for advice. Our preferred option is for you to use one of our Loan Scooters.
’What else do I need to know?’ We ask all new members rambling with us to come on one of the rambles shown as ‘suitable for new members’ before progressing onto more difficult rambles. This applies to all members using their own scooter, not just to those hiring our Loan Scooters. However, if anyone feels that they are already experienced in handling their scooter under difficult conditions they can contact Paula to discuss this.
If any member thinks they are likely to need help with unloading or loading their scooter, in personal care or in getting from their car to their scooter, it is important that they bring someone with them to help. We have no paid staff and any able-bodied people accompanying us are volunteers, friends, family and, sometimes, carers of our members. They frequently help us by holding gates or seeing us across roads but are not expected, or trained, to lift people or provide care to others.
For more details please see Let’s Go Rambling
