Fears for future of Shropshire disabled riding group
A disabled riding group backed by Paralympians will cease to exist if plans for a major new riding school do not go ahead, supporters say.
Perry Riding for the Disabled Group has been looking for a site for its planned Cavalier Centre, which would be the biggest in Shropshire and bring riders from all over the UK, for seven years.
But with all hopes pinned on a site at Bradley Farm, Farley, near Much Wenlock, those plans may be scuppered as Shropshire planners could not approve them because of traffic concerns. Now those involved are begging officers and developers to find a solution – or the good work the Perry Group does in the county may not be able to carry on.
Maria Budd of the Wenlock Olympian Society, a supporter of the Cavalier Centre plans, said the group currently ran from a house in Yeaton, near Shrewsbury but without long-needed new facilities its activities could not carry on.
She said: "If we don't find somewhere to move this centre it will close. We really are at the last chance saloon."
She said there were countless inspiring examples of children who had excelled with the help of the Perry Group, such as 11-year-old Katie Hayton from Morville, who has joined the English vaulting squad after being talent spotted this summer. Katie, who goes to Adcote School, has Asperger's syndrome.
Despite its modest facilities the group was still the only one to offer vaulting (gymnastics on horseback) and hippotherapy (physiotherapy on horseback) in the county.
"This has all come from this group that is at somebody's house at the moment," she said, adding that with the new centre so much more could be done – not least training and inspiring the next generation of paralympians. Telford riding star Ricky Balshaw, silver medallist at the Beijing Paralympics in 2008, is a supporter of the Cavalier Centre, having started out with Riding for the Disabled when he was four – and has expressed an interest in putting on displays at the centre if built, she said.
"There is not facility like it in the West Midlands and it will enable so many more disabled individuals to access the kind of activities that are proven to promote good health and well-being.
"However there are waiting lists for weekend and evening activities that cannot be reduced without the type of facility that is planned here," Mrs Budd said.
Volunteers have already raised £20,000 towards the centre, and children and teenagers across Shropshire have raised £54,000.
