A SENSORY garden for people with special needs has opened in a Teesside park.

The £23,000 garden, in Rossmere Park, Hartlepool, offers a range of touch, smell and sound experiences for wheelchair-bound people and those with sight difficulties.

As well as strongly-scented flowers and herbs, it features a fountain with a cobbled surface, paths, seating and picnic tables, and a flower bed which has been raised to waist-level, specially for those in wheelchairs.

The garden was opened this week by Elizabeth O'Rourke, chief administrator of the Hartlepool blind welfare association, and Robert Barnfather, one of the people who use the association.

Mrs O'Rourke said: "The garden is an extremely good idea. I am sure it will be a particular pleasure for visually-impaired people.

"It is wonderful to see such a lot being achieved in the park."

The park has been funded by Hartlepool Borough Council, which has worked closely with the Friends of Rossmere Park to make the idea a reality.

Bernadette Bloom, of the Friends of Rossmere Park, said: "We have been working towards this day for the last five years, and we are over the moon to see the garden become a reality."