ANTIGONISH COUNTY: After hearing an update on their accessibility plan, the warden for the Municipality of the County of Antigonish says the plan provides an overview of what they’re working on and the direction they want to go to increase accessibility.
The update on the plan to councillors was presented during the county’s regular monthly council meeting on Nov. 8.
“The accessibility plan is really a starting point, for the areas, that we as a municipality can really have a direct impact,” Warden Owen McCarron told The Reporter in an interview Nov. 18. “It starts with our services, it look at our programs and our infrastructure that we currently have; it has several actions of areas identified and I encourage folks to review them and provide us with feedback.”
The warden suggested they’d like to hear feedback from as many residents as possible because accessibility means different things to different people.
“There’s nothing like hearing from people that have learned experience with something and being that first voice for something is vital in making sure we’re heading in the right direction,” he said. “With one of our councillors, who uses a wheelchair, that started to shine a bit more of a spotlight on some of the deficiencies around accessibility in our community.”
Having someone who lives and experiences the challenges around accessibility on a daily basis, help inform what they should be looking at has been a critical resource, McCarron noted.
“A few years back, we did an accessibility challenge four or five years ago, and a number of councillors and staff got into wheelchairs and went through our community, just trying to navigate in a wheelchair to see some of the impediments,” he said. “And I can tell you that was an eye opening experience, to be honest. You go into somewhere where’d you walk in normally, and all of a sudden, there’s a little bit of a lip at the threshold and when you’re trying to cross that with a chair, it’s a total different experience.”
Having to deal with those minor one-inch lips, McCarron said, was the first thing that awakened council to the true extent of accessibility issues.
“Councillor (Gary) Mattie is a tremendous advocate around accessibility,” he said. “Who better than to help inform good decisions going forward; and we recognize there are different challenges with different disabilities.”
Highlighting mobi-mats installed at Pomquet Beach and Cape Jack Beach, along with the accessibility improvements made at the municipal building, the warden said the plan tries to address as many things as possible.
The accessibility plan will be available for review on the county’s website soon.