On December 4th last year, a buoyant deputy prime minister Nick Clegg announced that £5.26 million of funding would be made available over 2015 and 2016 to complete the England Coast Path by 2020. Walking enthusiasts across the nation celebrated, not least walking charity Ramblers, who had been spearheading the Coast Path funding campaign.
Less than a year on, there is a new government, Mr Clegg is gone and the future of this landmark project is in doubt.
Worse than that, with £37 billion of budget cuts promised but not detailed by Chancellor George Osborne’s summer budget, walking groups, along with the rest of the nation will have to wait until the Autumn budget to find out exactly where Osborne’s sword of Damocles will fall. Until then no one knows how those government departments looking after the walking network and walker’s interests such as Defra, local government, transport, tourism and health will be affected.
So what can be done while we await the fate of our 140,000 miles of rights of way in England and Wales alone? Do we just sit still and wait? “No,” says Ramblers CEO Benedict Southworth, who is asking the nation’s walkers to “step up” and help compile the largest survey of our walking paths ever attempted: “Our network is the envy of walkers around the world and one of our nation’s biggest assets, but in order to protect it, we need a complete picture of the entire walking network.”
This is the goal of Ramblers’ Big Pathwatch campaign, which was launched this summer along with a free smartphone app and website.
Walkers will be able to download the Big Pathwatch app and share their experiences as they walk every right of way within a specific OS grid square. They’ll be asked to share the positive features of the walk, the beautiful views or interesting landscapes they see, as well as – crucially – noting any problems.
If you’re not a smartphone user you can use the dedicated section of ramblers.org.uk to adopt your own squares, and log your positive and negative observations to your route, including photos.
The results of the Big Pathwatch will allow Ramblers to create a comprehensive report on the state of the nation’s path network, which will be used to campaign for funding its upkeep.
Ramblers has said that, where possible, path maintenance teams will head out and fix any problems identified by the survey, clearing brambles and other overgrown vegetation, improving path surfaces and fixing bridges and gates.
Running until December 2015, the Big Pathwatch will enable Ramblers to come up with other long term solutions to ensure our walking network is protected for years to come, as well as continue to lobby local and national government to continue funding work on the network.
ramblers.org.uk
