Lin Berwick , who is blind, has cerebral palsy and is a wheelchair user, was frustrated by the difficulty of finding suitable disabled holiday accommodation, so she founded The Lin Berwick Trust in 1989 to address this gap in the holiday accommodation market. After almost 10 years of fundraising, planning and hard work on the part of a small, dedicated team of volunteers, the Trust opened its first holiday cottage for the disabled, Berwick Cottage, in East Harling, Norfolk in 1997. It has been a resounding success, receiving the highest accolades for disabled holiday accommodation of this type from Tourism for All (formerly Holiday Care) and VisitBritain, which has given it the award of Access exceptional under the new National Accessible Standards Scheme and a 4-star rating under the National Quality Assessment Scheme. The Trust's second holiday cottage for the disabled, Denis Duncan House, in Dirleton, East Lothian, opened its doors to holidaymakers on 8 April 2006.
With your support, we hope to continue building self-catering disabled holiday accommodation of this quality throughout the UK and possibly even in mainland Europe. We are now raising money for a new cottage for the disabled in Cornwall. Our latest newsletter has news about the project and our progress in raising the £300,000 we still need. Our latest audited accounts show that we have a healthy balance sheet with no debts. In other words, your donation will go straight to the project!
