Overview

Cromer pier offers a chance for wheelchair-users to enjoy the seaside experience at one of Norfolk's most popular coastal resort towns.

Transport & Parking

There are several blue badge spaces on the promenade, and here's a tip on how to find them from my Norfolk-based uncle Les. When you drive into the town, find the Morrison's petrol station. Look across the road from there and you'll see a fish and chip restaurant with a sloping driveway next to it leading down from the town level to the promenade. There are 'access only' signs on this to stop traffic going down - but ignore those, because this access is for you and your blue badge! Drive along the promenade a few metres when you get to the bottom of the slope and you'll see the blue badge car park. The only drawback is that it gets quite full - we were lucky to take the last available space.

Access

Once you've parked your car in the blue badge car park on the promenade, the access to Cromer pier is good. It's on the same level as the promenade, with well-maintained surfaces and no steps or uneven ground. I was pleased to see another wheelchair-user on the pier crabbing with her family and friends (this is very popular there - you can hire buckets and lines to fish for crabs off the pier). The reasons I haven't given the access a higher rating is because it wasn't easy to take a look inside the lifeboat station at the end of the pier due to a high lip at the door, and because I I couldn't go onto the beach. The beach is a fair way below the promenade/pier level and is mostly reached via steps. There is a steep ramp down in one place but that would be pretty hairy in a wheelchair or scooter, and you'd immediately get bogged down in the sand and pebbles when you reached the bottom. I understand that Great Yarmouth, down the coast from Cromer, now has beach wheelchairs to hire and presumably a less steep way onto the beach, so that's the place to go if you want to get onto the sand in Norfolk. Meanwhile, there's plenty of other seaside stuff to do on Cromer pier and promenade, so it is worth a visit for wheelchair-users.

Toilets

Very pleased to find a clean, reasonably spacious accessible loo on Cromer Pier, and someone before me had even put a Euan's Guide card on the emergency cord!

Staff

I was actually rather pleased that things were set up well enough for wheelchairs and scooters that I could just get on with enjoying my visit without the fuss of having to ask for help from anyone. This is the ideal for me. So five stars for the people who built the pier in a way suitable for wheelchairs and installed the decent accessible loo.

Anything else you wish to tell us?

Follow my tip about Morrison's petrol station!

Photos