The Spinal Injuries Association (SIA), which works to support people with spinal cord injuries and remove barriers, has been awarded an £800,000 grant from the Motability Foundation.

The grant has been awarded over two years through the Motability Foundation’s Travelling with Confidence Grant Programme.

SIA underlines that travel is regularly reported as a challenge for the spinal cord injury (SCI) community and disabled people more widely.

Between 64 percent and 90 percent of respondents to the association’s 2023 What Matters? survey highlighted difficulties with access to the outdoors and countryside, parking, shopping, hotels, leisure, public transport, air travel, and Blue Badge schemes. Furthermore, just over two-thirds of people reported access to wheelchairs and mobility equipment as their main concern related to daily life with SCI.

SIA emphasises that poor wheelchair provision directly impacts people’s confidence and independence to make journeys.

The association’s SCI Travel Confidence Project aims to improve the skills and knowledge of the SCI community to travel independently and confidently. SIA says that it will use the £800,000 grant to build on its digital resource, the SCI Knowledge Hub, to boost the information available for the SCI community specific to active travel and making journeys.

Mark Ridler, SIA’s director of programmes, said: “Confidence to travel is a major prerequisite to engaging with family, access to a livelihood, maintaining a social life and, in other words, living a fulfilled life. This relies on knowledge and the necessary tools and access.

“This amazing award will enable SIA to greatly enhance member education, access to wheelchairs, and public awareness. We seek to transform the lives of 4,000 people in the first year and through systematic change, ultimately tens of thousands of people accessing all the travel support and advocacy they need.”

More than 700,000 disabled people receive their cars, wheelchair accessible vehicles, scooters, and powered wheelchairs through the Motability scheme. The Motability Foundation funds, supports, researches, and innovates so that all disabled people can make the journeys they choose.

Lisa Jones, the director of charitable operations at the Motability Foundation, commented: “We’re delighted to award Spinal Injuries Association (SIA) with this grant to work with the spinal cord injury community to support them to travel independently and confidently.

“SIA will build on their SCI Knowledge Hub, to embed travel support and confidence building, which is essential in enabling disabled people to live independently. Awarding grants to important local organisations like the Spinal Injuries Association helps us to make an immediate difference to the transport needs of disabled people.”

Veterans whose mobility issues are attributable to their service can now apply for support from the reinstated Veterans’ Mobility Fund from Help for Heroes. Find out more here.