Access Cornwall CIC | Helston, UK
D and I Consultancy
Access Cornwall CIC was founded by Viki Carpenter, a neurodivergent woman who became a carer at thirteen and spent her childhood watching the world her mother, a wheelchair user, could no longer reach. As a young woman, she saved to take her mother to the Louvre to see the Venus de Milo. They couldn't get there — two staircases, no accessible route. That moment has driven everything since.
Access Cornwall was established to make sure fewer people experience the barriers they faced that day. It is a disabled-led community interest company based in Cornwall, and every person on its team — staff and volunteers alike — has lived experience of disability or neurodivergence. That is not a detail. It is the foundation of everything the organisation does.
In the years since founding with a small Awards for All grant in 2020, Access Cornwall has grown into one of the most distinctive and credible accessibility organisations in the South West. In 2025/26 alone, over 200,000 people accessed Access Cornwall's resources seeking the confidence to get out and participate in everyday life. The organisation has supported 223 organisations across Cornwall — from Cornwall Council, Truro City Council and the National Trust, to Tate St Ives, the Minack Theatre, Hall for Cornwall, Watergate Bay Hotel, St Austell Brewery, Truro College, and even Piriou, the shipping company developing the new passenger ferry to the Isles of Scilly. Access Cornwall has delivered a landmark Access Truro project providing an access guide and supporting 93 businesses and is now working with towns throughout the Duchy on similar programmes.
The organisation also plays a significant strategic role in Cornwall's public life — sitting on Cornwall Council's SEND Employment Forum and Autism Strategy Group, consulting with Truro Diocese, and contributing to research through the Cultural and Heritage Accessibility Network established by Dr Simon Hayhoe at the University of Exeter.
32 volunteers with lived experience of disability and neurodivergence contribute to the work. Six disabled and neurodivergent people are now in paid employment through pathways that began with Access Cornwall. The organisation's founder has spoken at the Houses of Parliament twice, was nominated as a Positive Role Model for Disability at the National Diversity Awards 2025, and was runner-up for this award in 2023.
Access Cornwall's vision is a Cornwall — and eventually a country — where disabled and neurodivergent people can take part, explore and belong. Every audit, every guide, every door opened is a step toward that.
