A new very determined community group is on a mission to make Wagga more accessible for people from all walks of life.
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A joint initiative of the council, Intereach, and the NSW Council for Intellectual Disability, the Wagga Access Working Group met for the first time last month to discuss different barriers to accessibility around the city.
Organiser and Intereach linker Kerein Mullins said the group brought together a wide range of stakeholders who all had key insight into disability and access.
“We have people from all walks of life – professionals with businesses, parents of younger children with a disability, parents of adult children with mobility issues, and a couple of older members of the community,” Ms Mullins said.
“We want to help Wagga become a more inclusive city, and I think whatever we can do in whatever capacity will only be helpful to our community.”
Ms Mullins said accessibility issues did not only affect people with disabilities.
“We're not just talking about people with mobility issues – we’re also thinking about parents with prams, the elderly, people from other cultures,” she said.
“One of the issues raised was the signage on buses and public transport being easier to read for people, including for people from different backgrounds, who may need other languages.”
The NSW Council for Intellectual Disability’s Sarah Manley, who chaired the group’s first meeting, said they had already come up with 16 ways to make Wagga more accessible for all.
“We prioritised those 16 recommendations, and the top three we came up with were access to shops and restaurants in the main street, accessibility issues around taxis and public transport, and access to the proposed new bikeways,” Ms Manley said.
“We also found that a lot of our recommendations could be addressed by members, and we’ve already had a lot of success with that at the RSL club.
“We were discussing how the disability ramp at the RSL is not under cover like the stairs are, so when it rains the ramp gets very slippery, so one of our members approached the RSL and now we’re working with them to address that issue.”
When The Daily Advertiser asked about 100 people earlier this year if they or someone they knew had experienced barriers to accessibility in Wagga, more than 90 per cent of respondents said they had.
