The figures are revealed in an impact report for WheelPower, the national charity for wheelchair sport.

The amount people coming from all around the country to train for the British team, attend a sports camp, or participate in a disability sport has increased by 17 per cent on the previous year, said the report.

With sports events in Stoke Mandeville, London, Birmingham, Glasgow and an advisor programme at some of the Spinal Injury Centre’s around the country WheelPower have been able to help even more people, it is claimed. 

In the past year, 794 patients currently rehabilitating from a spinal cord injury enjoyed a range of activities including archery, fitness, table tennis, slalom races and wheelchair rugby organised by WheelPower's physical activity cdvisors and 288 disabled children were introduced to sport at the organisation's highly commended junior sport programme.

“I went to my first WheelPower camp and I tried lots of different sports, but the last sport I tried was archery and I fell in love with it straight away! I felt that the whole experience of the WheelPower camp was amazing and without it I would have never had found archery," said Megan Fossbery, a graduate of the programme, who is now hoping to compete for Britain in archery at next year's Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro. 

Stoke Mandeville Stadium was originally built in 1968 at a cost of £350,000 ($525,000/€500,000) on land leased by the Ministry of Health close to where Sir Ludwig Guttmann organised the first events for casualties from World War Two suffering from spinal cord injuries

“Whether it’s joining a team, competing for Great Britain or simply joining in with friends, WheelPower aim to support people at all levels," said WheelPower's chairman Kevan Baker. 

“Our work has contributed to a rise in the number of disabled people playing sport in recent years. Currently 17.2% of disabled people play sport once a week, a rise of 224,700 over the last nine years.”

“Sadly this much lower than the 39.3 per cent of non-disabled people who regularly play sport and much more needs to be done to enable more disabled people to play sport more often.

"WheelPower will continue increasing participation for more disabled people throughout 2016.”

To read full report click WheelPower Impact Report.pdf.

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