WORK has started on a garden path which will enable a disabled girl to exercise outdoors after a community rally which raised £3,000.

A running group has raised money for Lilian River Fitz-Hugh during lockdown, which has gone towards a stable surfaced track for the young girl to enjoy the use of her trike and walking frame in her garden in Lower Broadheath.

The five-year-old, nicknamed LiRi, has a significant learning difficulty called chromosome microdeletion. LiRi and her mum Joanna Fitz-Hugh have been in self-isolation during the coronavirus pandemic.

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A group of 13 friends created a ‘Lockdown Running Group’ to ‘individually but together’ run the distance from Land’s End to John O’Groats in seven weeks. Six of the runners who raised money for the path are officers from West Mercia Police.

Detective Inspector Justin Taylor said: “LiRi suffers from significant learning difficulties further complicated by visual impairment, epilepsy and a hole in her heart. Her low muscle tone means that getting over illness is a challenge at the best of times. She loves life generally and loves to travel around on her walking frame or on her trike, which she has recently learnt to steer, but doing this during the lockdown period has been virtually impossible. As LiRi is currently unable to attend school, she cannot undertake her favourite activities safely.”

Joanna previously appealed for help towards the path which inspired JWH Diggers Ground Works and Construction, a Malvern company, to offer to build the path and do the work for free.