Three local leisure operators have teamed up with Bolton Deaf Society to make accessibility to fitness and exercise less daunting for the profoundly deaf and hard-of-hearing community. A month-long trial is running at Bolton Arena Sports Village, Farnworth Leisure Centre and Leverhulme Park Community Leisure Centre, where front-line staff such as receptionists, gym instructors, and customer service representatives have had deaf awareness and basic British Sign Language (BSL) training so they can communicate more effectively with deaf and hard-of-hearing visitors. Fourteen deaf community members have enlisted for the trial aimed at removing the need for sign language interpreters, making them self-sufficient when they visit a leisure centre, gym or swimming pool.
Zienna Hall, Project Lead at Bolton Deaf Society, said: “For someone who is profoundly deaf and uses British Sign Language - a visual not written language - as their first language, coming into a leisure centre can be very daunting with all the way-finding signs, registration and assessment forms, and instructions on safe equipment use in English – particularly when the staff in-situ can’t communicate with them. “What we want to do is take away communication barriers and, ultimately, the need for interpreters, growing enthusiasm among the deaf community towards physical activity and regular participation. “We did a trial last year and with interpreters in all the sessions, so all the deaf people used the int.