The National Trust who protect and look after hundreds of historic buildings, gardens and precious collections, miles of coastline, woodlands, and the countryside, who have and continue to provide access for blind and partially sighted people have just launched their programme for 2024 which includes many exciting projects around access too. 

In what will be the first of a number of interviews and features focusing on the National Trust’s access offer for blind and partially sighted people RNIB Connect Radio’s Toby Davey caught up with Dr Heather Smith, Access and Equality Specialist at the National Trust for an introduction to the Trust and to find out more about their access offer for disabled people and of course blind and partially sighted people too. 

The first exciting projects around access that Heather mentioned to Toby was the production of around 1,000 guides looking at the accessibility of National Trust locations that the Trust has been working on with AccessAble highlighting what sort of access information will be included in the guides and how they will help blind and partially sighted visitors. 

Then to how the Trust has been trialing the use of the NaviLens codes and technology at one of their Devon properties and how the Trust’s digital team have been working with the RNIB on the use of the NaviLens technology to a couple of access projects that Heather is looking forward to the National Trust launch this year.

If you would like to find out more about access at one of the National Trust locations near you or just more about access generally then do email [email protected] or visit the following Access for Everyone pages of the National Trust website - https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/who-we-are/about-us/access-for-everyone

(Image shows RNIB logo. 'RNIB' written in black capital letters over a white background and underlined with a bold pink line, with the words 'See differently' underneath)