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You are here: Home > Other Schemes > Innovation

• Managing Organisation:

  South Gloucestershire Council

• Contact:

  Stuart Bardsley

• Telephone:

  01454863468 

• Website:

  Click here to visit website

• View Map:

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Project Information

Making the Council’s services accessible to as many people as possible, regardless of
ability is a priority for South Gloucestershire Council and an innovative project launched
in July 2007 has gone some way to do just that at our local nature reserve (LNR) in Wick.

Working with the South Gloucestershire Disability Action Group and the Friends of
Wick Golden Valley LNR, the Wild Roots Project, (a heritage Lottery funded project)
devised and created an audio trail around the Wick site.

This beautiful reserve, which has a rich industrial heritage, is home to over seven species
of bat, including the lesser horseshoe, a priority Biodiversity Action Plan species.

The Bat Audio Trail project has been created to help raise awareness of the bats and also
the site’s natural and industrial heritage and has been designed to allow partially sighted
or the blind the ability to visit the site and experience the magic of discovering bats.

The trail is waymarked using oak posts, sourced from a local woodland and incorporates
a tactile waymarking disc that glows in the dark. At several points around the trail the
numbered posts act as a reference to the audio guide, which can be listened to either on
CD, mp3 player or mobile phone. The CD is contained within special packs that are
freely available to loan through the library service. The packs contain a specially adapted
bat detector that enables uses of all abilities to easily use the device to detect bats.

This innovative project, using the latest technology to design and manufacture the
waymarkers and the special packs has been regarded as a huge success by those who
have trailed the packs and waymarked audio trail.

The initiative has helped form a strong partnership between those organisations involved
in the project and we look forward to broadening the project and making our greenspaces
more accessible to younger people this year.

The Bat Audio Trail has been well promoted, using an exhibition at local libraries and a
striking black and white large print designed leaflet. The popularity of the packs is being
monitored by library staff, who have agreed to maintain the packs. Feedback has been
positive from those who have used them.

A series of bat walks last year attracted many people from the area including partially
sighted and blind people who thought the evenings were amazing. The specially adapted
bat detectors emitted the strange and funny noises from the bats echolocation and proved
a huge hit to our younger audiences. The programme of bat walks for the summer starts
in May and will again include several special walks for organised groups who are
partially sighted or blind.

The Heritage Lottery Fund who funded the project attended the launch and plan to
showcase the project on a DVD when they relaunch the grant programme in May 2008.
They were particularly interested in the oral history section and the innovative way the
project has been developed and implemented.