2.5
not truly accessible
Marketed by Winchester Tourism as a trail "for all the family", and on another side was recommended by a child wheelchair user, we were distressed to find that this doesn't include accessibility for adult wheelchair/powerchair users! The trail starts in a carpark near a large house and then goes through the town up the hill. However some of the shops had placed advertising boards right in the middle of the pavement which were difficult to navigate. The trail along the River Alre itself was beautifully clear and had ducks and swans gliding up and down, but there were frequent sections of the riverbank which had fallen into the river, with quite a few potholes which narrowed the path so much, in places dangerously so. I was forced to get up from my wheelchair and try to navigate round these, not easy when one can barely walk. There are also large stinging nettles overhanging the path and I was only too glad to have worn trousers on a very warm day and was grateful that my arms didn't get stung. One passing gentleman did remark that he thought that repairs were in the offing. Pity they hadn't been done before we got there as it really made the trail far more exhausting for me than we had expected and we wouldn't have gone had we known how challenging it was.
Marketed by Winchester Tourism as a trail "for all the family", and on another side was recommended by a child wheelchair user, we were distressed to find that this doesn't include accessibility for adult wheelchair/powerchair users! The trail starts in a carpark near a large house and then goes through the town up the hill. However some of the shops had placed advertising boards right in the middle of the pavement which were difficult to navigate. The trail along the River Alre itself was beautifully clear and had ducks and swans gliding up and down, but there were frequent sections of the riverbank which had fallen into the river, with quite a few potholes which narrowed the path so much, in places dangerously so. I was forced to get up from my wheelchair and try to navigate round these, not easy when one can barely walk. There are also large stinging nettles overhanging the path and I was only too glad to have worn trousers on a very warm day and was grateful that my arms didn't get stung. One passing gentleman did remark that he thought that repairs were in the offing. Pity they hadn't been done before we got there as it really made the trail far more exhausting for me than we had expected and we wouldn't have gone had we known how challenging it was.
