Little WHIZZ!

Meet one of the UK's youngest, and cutest, electric wheelchair users

- TRACY GAYTON

Seeing toddler Bella Smythe racing round her garden, her proud mum Lizzy can't help but feel like a dream has come true. Because until recently, her disabled daughter was immobile - unable to crawl, stand up unaided or walk. But now, after being given an electrically powered wheelchair, there's no stopping her!

'Bella has cerebral palsy, affecting her from the waist down, and leaving her with very limited control over her body's lower half. Before getting her electric wheelchair, she was reliant on us to take her everywhere she wanted to go, as on her own she couldn't move much,' says Lizzy, 40, from Ipswich. 'She is a bright, happy girl, but it has always been difficult seeing our friends with their toddlers running around, while Bella just had to sit and watch them having fun. Now, thanks to her wheelchair, she can keep up with the other children.

Lizzy works in quality assurance, her husband Ben, 42, is a company director, and he has a 14-year-old daughter from a previous relationship. But when the couple came to have their own child, Lizzy developed pre-eclampsia and went into labour at 30 weeks. As a result of her premature birth, Bella was born with cerebral palsy.

But she is now mobile for the first time, thanks to the loan of a Wizzybug electric wheelchair, designed especially for young children, from a charity called Designability. She's one of the UK's youngest-ever children to be able to use such a mobility aid, the youngest was just 14 months old when they received one.