WHEELCHAIR users are able to enjoy more of the Sunshine Coast’s Ewen Maddock Dam after Seqwater, in partnership with Spinal Life Australia, installed a new accessible gate.
The purpose-built gate by Sunshine Coast Ford Brothers Fencing was designed and tested with input from wheelchair users.
It replaces a horse step-over barrier used previously at the trail entrance.
Seqwater Recreation and Catchment Services Coordinator Justin Lee said the new gate served the dual purpose of making the trails more accessible for people with mobility aids while still preventing trailbike entry for safety and environmental reasons.
Spinal Life Australia Senior Advisor of Access and Advocacy, Dane Cross, said: “This is a very good example of person-centred approach to design, including people with disability in all stages of the process.”
THE University of the Sunshine Coast (UniSC) and Sunshine Coast Council have teamed up to create an innovative real world student pilot project dubbed Sunshine Coast Community Co-Lab.
As GC&M News revealed last month (September 20 edition) a community engagement project for Glass House Mountains Village launched through the pilot model is set to provide an opportunity to bring together the community, staff and students of the UniSC and Council.
People can share their thoughts about their village, how it functions, its character and identity via an online survey, or in person next month when the Co-Lab team visits the area.
Division 1 Councillor Rick Baberowski said this exciting Co-Lab Pilot Project would be a genuinely cooperative process for students and the community to work together to explore and evaluate potential design and placemaking ideas that could improve, re-define or even transform the Glass House Mountains Village.
“The project seeks to dive deeply into the community’s lived experience and vision to help create places that are more sustainable and better reflect their distinctive identity moving more confidently forward into the future,” Cr Baberowski said.
Cr Baberowski said to keep an eye out for UniSC students in the village during November, who will be undertaking field work by engaging directly with the Glass.