Community groups benefit from Access Grants in Aston

Community and faith groups in the Aston area of Birmingham have recently benefited from grants of up to £7,000 from Aston Pride to make adaptations to their buildings so that their services can become more accessible to the whole community. The grants were provided through Birmingham Disability Resource Centre who worked closely with Aston Pride to carry out audits on buildings and provide training to 15 community organisations in Aston.

Projects which benefited financially included the Park Lane Garden Centre run by BITA Pathways who improved access, disabled driver car parking and signage in their building, Aston Parish Church who made a large section of the church accessible via level flooring, Saathi House who added an automatic front entrance door as well as creating an accessible kitchen area for local disabled women and Holy Trinity Community Centre who made a side entrance of their centre accessible via a ramp for elderly and disabled service users to access the garden. The Kokni Mosque in Aston received help towards car parking for disabled members of their congregation.

Three groups which provide support to parents of disabled children also benefitted from new play and sensory equipment. Pete Millington, who coordinated the project on behalf of BDRC said “it was a great pleasure to help grass-root groups in Aston to make their services more accessible to more local people. We plan to run a training event for groups at one of these buildings in June”.