Lift Off..
During the Easter weekend in April 2014, the 360 Observatory opened for the first time to great excitement and fanfare.
Everybody, including wheelchair users, could get to it along 600m of extra-wide boardwalk. It was even designed to be 10 feet off the wetland floor so that wheelchair users could have an elevated viewing position. We tried everything we could at the time to get all our visitors to the top level, but we couldn't with the construction time frames we had, never mind any budget constraints. After all, how do you get electricity almost half a mile into a reedbed-swampy habitat, and enough of it, to power a lift?
We thought we had done well, but 'well' wasn't good enough. Soon we had complaints from wheelchair users and people of restricted mobility that they too wanted to share in the excitement of going to the top floor and enjoying some of the best views of ospreys and wildlife you could get. And why shouldn't they?
Less than two years on, thanks to a £14,500 grant from Natural Resources Wales and another £14,500 in donations from our generous followers, notwithstanding a huge amount of willpower and help from volunteers too, we've fixed it.