Accessibility and fitness levels

If you have mobility problems and need to use either walking aids or a wheelchair, we do need you to tell us this at the time of booking. This makes it much easier to accommodate your requirements and on our practical events is for your own health and safety, as at certain times of year or after high rainfall there may be issues for those who are not so sure footed.

We try to make our events as accessible as possible for people of all mobility levels.

At our training centre in Huntingdon this is easy as we have full disabled access. However we work at a wide number of locations around the country which vary immensely in their accessibility. Our Big Cat PhotoShoot locations are especially problematic for wheelchairs as if it has been wet for long periods (even in summer this can be a big problem), it can be far too muddy for wheelchairs to access many parts of the site even if the chairs are designed for "off road" use.  The site is being improved all the time but we feel that on health and safety grounds it is not up to the required standard at the moment, once the paths are more complete we will review the fitness levels again.

When booking hotel based events please do tell us if you fall into category 1-3 below as we may need to request specific rooms at the hotel location. Also although a location may be able to cater well for general visitors who have mobility problems, we often need to access locations which do have rather more problems especially for wheelchair users. We will allow a carer to accompany disabled delegates free of charge on events. Also a number of our practical events do require a degree of fitness and stamina due to the walking involved.

We have graded our practical events for mobility and fitness access according to the following grades.

• Level 1

  Suitable for wheelchair user unaccompanied.

• Level 2

  Suitable for wheelchair user with carer accompanying.

• Level 3

  Suitable for persons requiring walking aids.

• Level 4

  Suitable for someone of normal fitness.

• Level 5

  A reasonable degree of fitness is required for these events as there is some walking and terrain that may be muddy and uneven.

• Level 6

  A good degree of fitness is required as these events involve a walk of up to 4 miles and will have steep gradients and will be over uneven terrain.