IN THE run up to this year’s Disability Awareness Day we will be looking at some of the services that our charity of the year Warrington Disability Partnership provides to the town.

Tom Coleridge is WDP’s information officer and works to promote accessibility and the understanding of disabilities in Warrington.

From visits to schools and pointing people who need to access services in the right direction to the charity’s access guide and audits for businesses, Tom is working to make the town a better place for disabled people.

The 24-year-old first came into contact with WDP when looking at equipment after he was badly wounded while fighting in Afghanistan with the Duke of Lancaster regiment in 2010.

He said: “When I first came down here I came to look at equipment and now three years later I’m working here.

“We’re always out there trying to raise money and helping people improving their lives.

“It can just be a little thing like where you can get a blue badge – when you get a nice thank you from someone it makes you feel really good.

“You feel like you’re making a difference constantly working here.”

Tom helps to point disabled residents in the right direction for any services they need and also visits schools in the area to promote awareness.

The former St Gregory’s Catholic High School student said: “We provide a lot of disability information – for instance, if someone rang up needing a parking badge or bus pass we can tell them where to go.

“I didn’t know where to go to be honest and it’s good that people can ring up here.

“We also do a lot of fundraising and community engagement, going out to schools and telling them about disabilities so that they understand it.

“It’s great that we start at primary school age because when they go to high school they see a lot of disabilities.

“I didn’t have this in school and I’m sure a lot of people don’t but starting at this age means they don’t see the stigmas.

“In some of the school’s I’ve been in recently there have been disabled kids in there and their classmates are brilliant and help them out – one lad had cerebral palsy and the kids were falling over him to help him which was really nice to see.

“The kids love it and the teachers absolutely love it as well.”

Tom also visits business in the town to assess their accessibility, while WDP also has an access guide with information on restaurants and shops in Warrington and surrounding towns.

He added: “If someone from a pub or restaurant wanted to make their place more accessible we would go there and have a look and tell them what they need to improve on.

“A lot of the restaurants in Warrington are accessible but some of them aren’t – you don’t think about it until you’re in that situation.

“You have to plan everything around your disability – if you’re going out for something to eat you’ve got to know if the place is accessible.

“We have a Warrington access guide with everything in Warrington on it – for example, it tells you if its wheelchair accessible, if it has a disabled toilet or accessible parking.”