FEW would argue that Truro’s expansive Boscawen Street is historic and beautiful. Its hand-crafted granite cobbles, known as setts, were laid in 1883 and it’s hard to imagine the city centre without them.

However, the setts can be a major headache for anyone in an electric wheelchair, or using a rollator or walking frame, as Cornwall’s top decision makers found when they attended an ‘Experience Truro Differently’ day. The aim: to help them understand, by means of disability aids including wheelchairs and vision impairment goggles, the challenges faced by residents and visitors with disabilities, health conditions and neurodivergence.

“One participant told me afterwards, ‘Truro is relentless on your back’,” says Cllr Steven Webb, a former mayor who sits on Truro City Council and Cornwall Council for the Moresk and Trehaverne ward, and has been a wheelchair user for over three decades.

Cllr Webb worked closely with accessibility awareness and training organisation Access Cornwall CIC on the event. A key task was to navigate the route from Lemon Quay to the Post Office - crossing Boscawen Street. Here, Cornwall Council chief executive Kate Kennally negotiated busy TG Jones in a mobility scooter, and learned how soul-destroying it is “to get to the Post Office at the back of the shop, only to find you need to buy an envelope from the front before you can do what you want to do”.

But the “holy grail” was when Neil Edmond, chief executive of Corserv – Cornwall Council’s arms-length group of companies including Cormac and Corserv Care - got stuck going down a wheelchair ramp in Boscawen Street.

Cllr Webb chuckles at the memory, promises it wasn’t a set-up and adds: “It was a lesson in how, on paper, one drop kerb is the same as any other. It’s not the same as experiencing one that works and one that doesn’t, and knowing the difference. That was what we wanted to give them, so the next time someone sends them a letter, they will understand it a little bit more.”

The event was part of the wider Access Truro project which culminated in the recent launch of The Accessible Guide to Truro. Access Cornwall produces an annual Cornwall-wide publication, and Truro - delivered in partnership with Truro BID - is its second local guide after Looe. It collates clear, carefully checked accessibility information about shops, cafés, venues and services so residents and visitors can make informed choices when they stay, eat, visit and explore the city.

“Access Cornwall exists because there was no one-stop shop for people with disabilities to find information about what’s accessible and what isn’t,” says founder Viki Carpenter. “You have to visit individual websites, and there may or may not be the details you need. Very often, you’ll be told to ‘call us with your access requirements’, but doing that on repeat is really challenging.

“Our one goal was to put together a really good guide with all the information that would help someone decide whether or not to go somewhere based on their access needs.”

Cllr Webb thinks they’ve done a “fantastic job”, even more so because the guide isn’t exclusively for businesses that are already 100 per cent accessible. “One of the things I like is that everywhere is included, making it a snapshot of where Truro is now in terms of accessibility,” he says.

“For example, you might find a ground-floor café where you can get in and enjoy an excellent meal, but there’s no accessible toilet. That information is there for someone to make their own decision.”

The collaboration also saw 63 businesses complete accessibility reviews; 93 supported with accessibility training to improve customer experience and staff confidence; and several portable ramps funded and delivered to Truro businesses to support safer, more inclusive access.

Those include Rusty’s barber shop in Pydar Mews. Owner Russell Welsh says: “The premises has a step, and lifting a heavy wheelchair over the threshold was impossible. I was visiting one customer at home, and thanks to the portable ramp, he has able to come to me.

“It’s preferable all round. It means I have all my kit to hand without taking it home, and am not invading the client’s personal space - and he can enjoy the same experience as other customers.”

The plan is for the ramp to be available for all Pydar Mews businesses to use when required. “The more people who can get into the shops by wheelchair access, the better – it means more business, after all.”

The Hall For Cornwall, meanwhile, has also taken on a portable ramp which will give disabled customers better access to its cafe entrance, avoiding a lengthy diversion up Back Quay to find a drop kerb.

Window stickers have also been provided to businesses wishing to let customers know they are accessible. “If I’m downtown and I don’t know if a business has a ramp, I don’t like to ask,” says Cllr Webb. “It’s embarrassing for the staff to say no, and how do you get in to ask in the first place? The window stickers solve one half of that equation at least. It’s not a perfect solution, but you shouldn’t wait for the perfect solution without doing all the steps in between.”

Truro mayor Cllr Chris Wells donned vision impairment goggles and was led through the city centre to simulate the experience of a partially-sighted pedestrian. During the experience, he learned how the “tactile” paving next to pedestrian crossings communicates information including the end of the pavement and whether a crossing is controlled by traffic lights.

“It brought home both the small improvements that make a big difference and the barriers that still make everyday journeys difficult,” said Cllr Wells. “It was a humbling reminder that accessibility is not an abstract concept - it is about people’s real experiences, independence, and sense of belonging.”

In the long-term, Truro BID will continue to encourage businesses to build on the progress made, helping to embed accessibility as a core part of a thriving city centre experience for all.

And what does it mean for Boscawen Street setts in the long term? “It’s not the setts that are the problem,” says Cllr Webb. “It’s what happens when they are badly maintained or relaid. There’s a patch in front of the Hall For Cornwall that’s perfectly smooth despite buses going over it all day long; there are no buses in King Street or Duke Street, and yet those setts are terrible.

“It’s due to different contractors laying them down to different standards. I wouldn’t say get rid of them; it’s more a case of having a long-term priority to look at Boscawen Street with some bigger thinking, rather than saying ‘let’s just fix that patch there’.”

Printed copies of The Accessible Guide to Truro are available from the Truro Visitor Information Centre on Boscawen Street, Truro Community Library. Guides Cornwall Mobility (North Buildings, behind Royal Cornwall Hospital, TR1 3LQ), isight Cornwall in Newham Road and Ross Care Cornwall Wheelchair Service in Heron Way, Newham. It is also available to view online at www.visittruro.org.uk/accessibility.

Access Truro has been funded through Cornwall Council’s Town Regeneration and Investment Programme, part of the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Good Growth Programme, and match-funded by Truro City Council.