09/03/20 - Aviva Community Fund

We are pleased to announce that The Friends of the Lower Derwent Valley have made it through to the final round of the Aviva Community Fund, with a bid to improve access to the hides and footpath network at Bank Island. We are looking to provide c1km of ‘easy access' pathway, to link with the improvements made to the track at Wheldrake Ings last year - creating 3km of accessible footpaths between the two reserves. Our aim is to make the reserve more accessible for those who may currently find it difficult to negotiate the natural paths, including wheelchair users, young families, the elderly, partially sighted, and those who generally don’t feel comfortable with unprepared surfaces. Many of the less mobile and confident are currently excluded from some areas of the reserve, and so we’d like everybody to be able to enjoy the wildlife spectacles the reserve has to offer.

As well as working with our own volunteers and corporate groups, we will also be working with Ad Astra York - an alternative education provider set up to re-engage young people. They will help shape, plan, design and deliver aspects of the project, and in-doing so will help secure life-long skills and interests – but we also need your help as this project is a crowd funder, and whilst Aviva staff are allowed to donate money from the company to their chosen cause, we need your help to reach our ‘all or nothing’ target. Please visit our page and give what you can - every little helps- https://www.avivacommunityfund.co.uk/bank-island-nature-reserve---access-for-all-2?fbclid=IwAR0ssNslJb6Pb0HbiGWdi7R38fUG_oJ492o3PuWMTGkANahuAzAQrROPeEk#start