A local author and disability rights campaigner who is working to make the countryside more accessible has collected an award from the Houses of Parliament.

Bethany Handley has won CPRE’s Countryside Changemaker Award, celebrating individuals aged 25 or older who make significant contributions to the rural landscape. She grew up with the outdoors as a second home, but found herself locked out of many of the green spaces she loved when she became a wheelchair user in her early twenties.

She now draws on her own experience to challenge, educate and encourage organisations to exclude fewer people from green spaces, and to make access to nature for all a reality.

The Countryside Changemaker award celebrates an individual aged 25 or over who has made an outstanding contribution to the countryside, whether by achieving practical change, bringing people together, campaigning to influence decision-makers, or using storytelling to inspire others.

CPRE noted that Bethany had made an impact across all of these areas, and was impressed by the range of ways Bethany's work makes a positive difference, both for the countryside and for the people who want to enjoy and protect it. Her work has advanced inclusion through practical access improvements and through cultural change.

"I'm really grateful to have won this award, because my relationship with the countryside means so much to me,” she said.

“Being able to enjoy nature matters for everyone's wellbeing, and yet many of us find ourselves unable to take part in outdoor activities because of poor maintenance, poor planning and, sadly, the deliberate exclusion of people who use mobility aids."

Bethany's second book, My Body is a Meadow: Finding Freedom in the Outdoors, published earlier this year, tells the story of how she found her way back to nature after becoming disabled. A rallying cry to stop gatekeeping nature and to work together to make it open and equal to all, it was recently longlisted for the Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing.