How do you know if grants have improved woodland access for disabled people?

Summary

Forestry Commission Scotland is the largest single provider of outdoor recreation in Scotland and provides significant sums of grant aid to support woodland-based leisure activities. But how far have these grants supported and promoted equal access for disabled people to woodland recreation? Forest Research commissioned the OPENspace Research Centre in Edinburgh to develop a methodology to assess this aspect of grant funding mechanisms.

Key Findings

• Evaluation methodologies for forestry grants should assess individual projects and the wider grant programme
• Evaluations should be integral to programme and project planning and not considered as ‘add-ons’
• Interviews and discussions with potential users and forest managers should be part of the process

Publications and presentations

Report – Assessing the contribution of forestry grants to equal access for disabled people to recreation goods, facilities and services in Scottish Forests – a critical review and amendment of the framework and toolkit used by commissioning bodies for the evaluation of projects for increasing access to the outdoors ^(PDF-328K).

Report – Assessing the contribution of forestry grants to equal access for disabled people to recreation goods, facilities and services in Scottish Forests: Evaluation framework ^(PDF-281K)

Funders and partners

Funded by Forestry Commission Scotland. Commissioned and managed by Forest Research.

The study was undertaken by the OPENspace research centre in Edinburgh.

Status

This project was completed spring 2007.

Contacts

Bianca Ambrose-Oji