A council grant trained 20 new guide runners in Winchester, taking the city to 28. Five blind and partially sighted runners now join club runs and parkruns.

Twenty new guide runners have been trained in Winchester, so blind and partially sighted people can run with local clubs. The training was paid for with a Winchester City Council Community Grant (Winchester City Council).

Winchester Fit Club Running Club (WFCRC) applied for the grant earlier this year. The new guides come from two clubs: WFCRC and Winchester Running Club.

What changes

A guide runner runs alongside a blind or visually impaired runner and helps them follow a safe route, on the road or on a track. The club is affiliated to England Athletics, and the guides were trained through it.

According to the council’s announcement:

  • 20 guide runners have been newly trained
  • Winchester now has 28 guide runners in total
  • they are supporting five visually impaired runners
  • those runners can now join club sessions, parkruns and local races

Keira Mills, a WFCRC member who is blind, said: “Not being able to find a guide is one of the reasons blind people feel they can’t run.” She added: “For most blind people, running without a guide is also impossible. But thanks to Fit Club, it no longer is.”

Mike Hastie of the club said the need is real. He put the number of people registered as sight impaired or severely sight impaired at an estimated 320,000 across the UK, and 550 to 600 locally within Winchester. He also cited RNIB research finding that blind and partially sighted people are twice as likely to be inactive.

Cllr Kathleen Becker, the council’s Cabinet Member for Healthy Communities, called it “an inspirational example of how to remove barriers and make sport truly accessible”.

What it means for you

If you are blind or partially sighted and would like to run, WFCRC is listed in British Blind Sport’s club directory. The listing describes it as a club for visually impaired runners of all sight levels, says no membership is needed, and gives the contact as wfcrunners@gmail.com (British Blind Sport).

If you run a not-for-profit club or group in the district, the same grant route is open now. The council’s current schemes (grants for not-for-profit organisations):

Scheme Up to Closes
District Small Grant Scheme £700 31 January 2027
Winchester City Community Grants £3,000 31 January 2027
Community Infrastructure Levy £10,000 to £200,000 Opens in November

The grants team is on grants@winchester.gov.uk or 01962 848269.

Winchester’s older residents have a separate reason to get moving this autumn: the council’s Live Longer Better classes for over-65s have just won a national award.