By Becky Procter

A STATE-of-the-art £100,000 scheme to help blind and partially sighted people find their way around the Kingfisher Centre will come on line in October.

The Way Finder system will be launched at the same time as department store giant Debenhams opens its doors to shoppers.

Up to 20 headsets will be available to inform shoppers where they are within the centre and the shops they are approaching or leaving.

A spokesman for centre owner Thornfield said: "This is just part of the on-going improvements to the Kingfisher Centre.

''We want to help people to shop and create a friendly environment at the same time.

''There are very few shopping centres which have this sort of facility in place."

People will be able to pick the system up from where Shopmobility is based, in Car Park 3, and, initially, they will operate from there up to Debenhams before being extended.

A project costing more than £100,000 to create a coach drop-off point in Car Park 3, to improve disabled access into the centre, is also now under way.

"We are also increasing the number of disabled parking spaces in the multi-storey car parks," said the spokesman.

''We are designating 12 more in Car Park 1."