Ms June Tinsley:

When someone gets a diagnosis of sight loss it can have a huge impact on his or her life as he or she tries to adjust to the news and has to cope with getting out and about safely and building up his or her confidence to do that. Therefore when e-scooters, bicycles and things like that come along, it does seriously knock people's confidence. In this case, the individual was walking on their way to work on a route with which he was very familiar because we walked with him and trained him on this route to be familiar with certain junctions and roads. He felt genuinely confident after beginning to accept his sight loss and adjust to his new sight. That individual did not hear a thing. The e-scooter came up on the kerb. Thankfully the individual was not injured but it did knock the driver off the scooter. Only for the fact that this person had built up the confidence in navigating his way safely and independently was he able to keep going on his journey. Had he not undergone that training, it would have genuinely set him back in his ability to get out safely.