Musselburgh Racecourse is now at the forefront of accessible sporting venues following the launch of Scottish Racing’s new Access Statements, which promotes the highest possible standards of customer experience for everyone, regardless of age or ability.

The Access Statements were developed in conjunction with VisitScotland’s Accessible Tourism Scotland initiative, a drive to help venues better cater for the requirements of people with access needs, including those with physical, sensory or learning disabilities, elderly visitors and parents with small children.

These access guides allow potential visitors to plan their trip from the comfort of their own home via their PC, tablet or mobile phone and informs visitors with access needs of every aspect of the venue, from car parking and transport, to access to the amenities within each venue.

The Access guide gives detailed information on gradients and widths of pathways, ramp and door access, lifts, information points and customer services and viewing platforms around the course.

Scotland is already one of the world’s leading tourist destinations and it is hoped that this is one further step towards all venues and attractions in Scotland becoming accessible to all. Currently, of the 11 million disabled people in Britain, only 2 million take a holiday, because they find it too difficult to gauge accessibility.

Scottish Racing Manager, Delly Innes, said: “Our Access Statements further demonstrate that racing in Scotland is accessible to everyone and anyone. All five of our Scottish racecourses pride themselves on the high standards of staff training and customer service that is on offer to any racegoer, notwithstanding their ability.”

Musselburgh Racecourse senior operations and commercial manager, Sarah Montgomery, added: “The Access Statement is an excellent way of promoting our racecourses as open to all and it underlines our commitment to making a day spent racing at Musselburgh as enjoyable as possible for people of all ages and abilities.”

Meanwhile, Musselburgh is back racing on Saturday (Sept 16) when it stages the Caledonian Cup Race Day. The 1m 5 furlong feature race, the £25,000 Caledonian Cup Handicap, has attracted entries from some of the UK’s leading stables, including Sir Mark Prescott and William Haggas.

Leading the Scottish challenge Iain Jardine has Tor down for the trip, which won at Chester last month, while Carluke-based Keith Dalgleish is expected to field Somnambulist and Taxmeifyoucan, which has won four of its last five races.

Gates open on Saturday at 1pm, first race is off at 3.30pm and the last race is 6.45pm. For more information and to book tickets please visit www.musselburgh-racecourse.co.uk

The Musselburgh Racecourse Access Guide can be viewed and downloaded by visiting https://www.accessibilityguides.org/content/scottish-racing-musselburgh-racecourse

ScotRail reaffirmed its commitment to making the railway accessible for all by recently helping deliver a training course at Milngavie station.

Students from Glasgow Caledonian University’s Graduate Diploma in Low Vision Rehabilitation put themselves in the shoes of someone who is visually impaired during the course, which took place on Wednesday 19 April 2017.

As part of an exercise to understand what a person with sight problems would experience, the students practised stepping on and off a train while visually impaired themselves.

By taking part, students were provided with the knowledge and experience to not only teach a visually impaired person the route to the railway station using a long-cane, but have the skills to familiarise the person with the main features of the station and train itself.

John Wilson, Community Liaison Executive for the ScotRail Alliance, said: “We’re committed to making the railway accessible for all and want to help build confidence in as many people as possible when using our services.

“Events like this are one way that we are supporting customers with visual impairment or restricted mobility.

“Over the past year our hard working staff have carried out 78,000 pre-booked passenger assists – making sure that people who need a bit of help to travel receive it.”

Alistair Smith, Lecturer at Glasgow Caledonian University, said: “Visually impaired travellers can be apprehensive about using public transport – particularly when boarding and alighting trains.

“It is a Rehabilitation Workers job to develop their mobility skills so that they can use public transport independently and with confidence.

“This session allowed the students to develop their teaching skills so they are able to teach long-cane users to travel independently.”