Yorkshire Dales encourgaes disabled walkers.

DISABLED ramblers will be going off road to enjoy some of the sights and history of the Yorkshire Dales National Park next week.

A group of members of the national Disabled Ramblers charity and their support team will be riding their tough, off-road electric wheelchairs over rough terrain and up and down some steep hills during a two-day visit on July 15 and 16.

The event will be the first of its type that the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority (YDNPA) has hosted.

Rachel Briggs, the YDNPA’s Access Development Officer, said: “The use of off-road wheelchairs will provide opportunities for people with disabilities to explore parts of the National Park that would normally be inaccessible to them – it’s going beyond the flat, surfaced road we would normally provide for a wheel chair user.

”The visit will help us to improve access for disabled people in these off-road wheelchairs and hopefully it will be the first of many.”

The National Park Rangers will be providing back-up vehicles during the ramblers’ outings to Reeth and Gunnerside areas in the north of the National Park.

And, as part of National Archaeology Week, the visitors will be given a guided tour of some of the historic treasures along the routes by Robert White, the YDNPA’s Senior Conservation Archaeologist.

“Reeth High Moor contains some extensive lead mines including Old Gang Smelting Mills on which we have done some conservation work, so we will be having a look at them,” he said.

“We will also be looking at some of the multi-period historic landscapes and field systems elsewhere in Swaledale.”