A charity has installed a new hoist to help more disabled people travel on canal boats.

Waterways Experiences, a volunteer led organisation which provides canal boat trips, were forced to turn disabled people away because they didn’t have the right facilities.

But Abbots Langley-based charity DEMAND designed a hoist that will allow people to get in and out of bed and to and from the toilet.

The hoist will help people who cannot transfer themselves to other facilities on the boat.

Adam Clow, Workshop Manager at DEMAND, said: “It’s been a challenging task to get a hoist working in such a confined space.

“The bathroom aboard the boat is compact, and we needed to allow space for a guest and their wheelchair, a personal carer and then the hoist.

“We concluded the base, which holds the weight of the person, would need to be concealed beneath the floor to make sure there was space to manoeuvre.”

Waterways Experiences has now planned three Enable holidays, which will take place in August and they have been able to accept guests with very limited mobility and teenagers with quadriplegia.

Mike Cole of Imagine Estate Agents, which sponsored the project, said: "We love supporting local charities, but more particularly charities where we can get to see the end results.

“Too often, even with very worthwhile causes, the supporter doesn’t always see where their contribution is going.

“In this regard DEMAND is a perfect vehicle to get behind because they produce a finished, bespoke, visible product.

“That is so much more rewarding and as such, in one guise or another, our association with DEMAND will last for many years to come."