Improved Accessibility

Hay is difficult to get around for wheelchair users, or anyone with mobility problems. The pavements are too narrow in many places (or don't exist at all), and most of the shops have steps to get in. Even if you can get inside, in some shops the aisles are narrow and there are lots of narrow, steep stairs, or odd steps to different levels.

However, Councillor Josie Pearson, who uses a wheelchair herself, has been very busy with a project called Shared Spaces. Hay Town Council got a grant of £10,000 from Natural Resources Wales, which was half the amount needed for the project, and now portable ramps have been distributed around several of Hay's businesses so that wheelchair users can get into the shops.
The shops have also been given a window sticker with a wheelchair-friendly image, so customers know which shops have the ramps.
The full list is:
Number 2 clothes and homeware shop on Castle Street
Rohan Travel and Outdoor clothes shop, also Castle Street
Golesworthy's, by the Clock Tower
the Red Cross Shop by the Buttermarket
Bain and Murrin, across the road from the Buttermarket
and Eve's Café by the Buttermarket.

Of course, wheelchair users will have to alert the staff somehow so they know to deploy the ramp, but it's a big improvement.

Booth Books already has a ramped entrance (it was part of the original design, to get farm machinery in and out long before it was a bookshop). They also have a lift to the first floor and to the café.
St. Mary's Church also has a ramp.

There are articles about the ramps in both the B&R and the Hereford Times this week.