Accessibility

If you are disabled or have poor mobility, there are a number of transport services you can use to help make it easier for you to access local amenities and attractions. We have listed a number of them here.

Many places mentioned in this guide are fully accessible for disabled people. However, if you would like to find out more details about all the accessibility features of local venues, we recommend the excellent, comprehensive resource, Disabled Go: www.disabledgo.info. Most of the area covered in this guide is within Newark and Sherwood District Council’s boundaries, so please visit the council’s page on the website to find the relevant information.

In Ollerton and the immediate surrounding area, the buses with the numbers 14 and 31 should have low floors and be accessible to wheelchair users. However, on other service routes in the area, the bus companies are not obliged by the county council to provide accessible buses.

If in doubt, please contact the operator of the bus service that you wish to use – most often Veolia or Stagecoach. You can also visit the county council’s website for more information: www.nottinghamshire.gov.uk/buses.

Visitors to the area can hire an electric wheelchair (but not a scooter) from Care Matters in either Mansfield Woodhouse, telephone: 01623 659 660; Newark, telephone: 01636 673 393 or Retford, telephone: 01777 708 595, on a daily basis. A deposit is required.

Anita’s Taxis
This company currently has two taxis that can take wheelchairs and their service covers the Ollerton, Edwinstowe, Walesby and Wellow areas. Please telephone: 01623 860830.

This company, based in Ollerton, has vehicles that are suitable for carrying wheelchairs. It also offers airport transportation services. Please telephone: 01623 862895.

Minibus Service and Blue Badge Tour Guide
Matt Graham Travel, based in Edwinstowe, offers a minibus service that is tailored to individuals’ needs. The minibuses are fully wheelchairaccessible. Matt Graham is also a ‘Blue Badge Tour Guide’, offering groups guided tours throughout Sherwood Forest and the Peak District. Please contact: Matt Graham, 20 Birkland Drive, Edwinstowe, NG21 9LU or telephone: 01623 822190.

Wheelchair accessible toilet facilities

Many of the attractions in this area are equipped with disabled toilets, however, if you are out and about, the following are accessible: Sherwood Heath Roundabout (Tourist Information Centre) Ollerton; Laxton Visitor Centre; Vicar Water Country Park Visitors’ Centre, off Mansfield Rd, Clipstone and Mansfield Road, Edwinstowe. Many disabled toilets require a RADAR key to open them. A key can be purchased from the RADAR website for around £3.50 (www.radar-shop.org.uk) or from a local council office, during opening hours.

In this area disabled people can park free of charge as long as they “display a valid disabled person’s badge, clearly showing the expiry date on the badge”. In car parks such as on Forest Road in New Ollerton, there are plenty of disabled bays, and parking in any of the bays is free all day. In any car park in the Newark and Sherwood area, people with disabled badges can park in any space free of charge if disabled spaces are full.

Staff at Tesco in Ollerton can assist you with filling up your car with petrol. Instead of driving to the petrol pumps, first telephone on: 0845 6779525 or visit Customer Services and they will send someone out to help you as the petrol pump assistant cannot leave the shop. Texaco has disabled toilets and parking. If two assistants are present, they are able to assist at the petrol pumps. Shell also operates this policy. On Tuesday and Thursday between 10am and 12 noon, Jet in Rainworth offers a filling service for disabled customers – they will respond to a beep from a car horn.

Places to stay and eat

Rufford Abbey Country Park offers free wheelchair hire

The national RADAR Disability Network publishes a guide to accommodation and places to eat with disabled facilities in book format (there should be a copy available in Ollerton Library). The Disabled Go website: www.disabledgo.info and the Direct Enquiries website: www.directenquiries.com also give helpful information about places to stay and eat.

In this area, various guides have identified a hostel and two hotels as having facilities for people who are disabled: Thoresby Hall Hotel, near Ollerton; and in Edwinstowe, Forest Lodge Hotel and Restaurant and Sherwood Forest Youth Hostel.

Visitors with mobility problems will find that the country parks cater well for their needs as they often have surfaced paths, disabled parking and toilets, accessible cafés and restaurants and wheelchair-friendly picnic benches. In addition, Rufford Abbey Country Park offers wheelchair hire at a cost of £2 per hour. Many other attractions in the area are also easily accessible, please refer to guides such as Disabled Go for detailed information.