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Creating a nature hide for everyone

credit Sarah Gibbs

We want to make nature accessible to everyone, whatever their needs. In this blog Pitsford Water Nature Reserve officer Mischa Cross explains how she is embarking on the challenge of creating the Trust's most accessible nature hide at the Northamptonshire reserve.

Pitsford’s wheelchair-accessible hide has come to the end of its safe working life – for humans, that is (more on that in a bit). Anglian Water has funded the design and installation of a replacement hide, giving us the opportunity to significantly improve accessibility. We aim to have the new hide installed by the autumn.

We hope to create a new structure which is our most accessible hide yet – we are consulting with a range of groups and users with different requirements to ensure no matter who you are you will be able to use it to experience and enjoy nature. 

My huge thanks go to Nick Wilson (read about his story on his website www.disabledadventurer.com), Peter Lau (www.accessiblenatureuk.com) and VocalEyes (https://vocaleyes.co.uk/) for their invaluable input in ensuring the space is truly inclusive.

Pitsford new hide base

The new hide will be an upcycled shipping container, featuring four large viewing spaces that will comfortably accommodate most types of wheelchairs and a range of user heights. It will also include fold-down seating, so non-wheelchair users can enjoy the space too.

A large shipping container isn’t the most attractive structure – although it should prove reassuringly vandal-resistant – so we plan to clad the exterior over time, as budgets allow. We will also be building screening on either side of the container to provide additional viewing opportunities for both wheelchair users and standing visitors. Behind the hide, some of the site’s fantastic photography volunteers will be creating a ‘natural photography studio’, accessible to both wheelchair users and those standing.  When the area is complete, there will be room for up to eight wheelchairs users.

Around the viewing area, work is underway to enhance the habitat, with the aim of almost guaranteeing fantastic wildlife encounters. This will ensure that visitors who cannot access the full reserve can still experience nature up close. The tern rafts are already well established in front of the hide; ospreys regularly fish there; herons nest opposite, soon to be joined, we hope, by egrets; and a newly cleared marginal area will attract waders in the autumn. Kingfishers fly by almost daily, and with strategically placed perches, we hope photographers will capture the perfect shot. And that’s just the birds – dragonflies, butterflies, and deer are also regularly spotted, along with foxes and, if you’re lucky, otters.

We’re currently deciding on a name for the new hide. We briefly considered following the approach of housing developers and naming it after what was there before. However, after consulting maps from the 1800s, we discovered the site was once a sewage bed… so perhaps we need to rethink that idea.

A view of a hide on the water front, from the top of a boardwalk leading down to it.

So, back to the old hide. It’s a lovely structure (see right), designed, funded, and built by the Northamptonshire Rotary Club in 2004, and a well-photographed feature of the reserve. Although it can no longer function as a hide for people, it will continue to serve wildlife and will be known as Wendy’s Wildlife Roost, in honour of a much-loved member of our volunteer team. We will install barn owl boxes in the hope that the barn owl that roosted there last year may return to breed. The structure is already home to unusual lichens on its shingle roof; birds regularly nest there, and bats will almost certainly take up residence once human disturbance ends.

Visitors to Pitsford Water Nature Reserve require a permit to access the site. Please note that dogs (except assistance dogs), bicycles, and jogging are not permitted on the reserve. Members of The Wildlife Trust BCN can obtain a free permit by contacting northamptonshire@wildlifebcn.org with their membership number. Blue Badge holders who wish only to visit the new hide do not require a permit, and there are three dedicated Blue Badge parking spaces available free of charge.  Non-members can buy an Anglian Water permit from the Fishing Lodge (7days, 8-2, March to October).

Plan layout for Accessible hide area

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