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Caring for the parish paths

Posted on December 07 2011 at 5:01:17 0 comments

Sir – I was quite concerned on reading about the poor lady who slipped and in doing so cut her hand on barbed wire while using the country footpath from the Meadows to Old Rectory Lane, Alvechurch (Village Views, November 2011).

I am not sure if it’s known or not but Alvechurch Village Society has a group of local volunteers who endeavour to maintain the 28 miles or so of country Public Rights of Way that wind their way throughout Alvechurch Parish, and occasionally help out with adjoining parishes and their public rights of way.

We take on this task on behalf of Worcestershire County Council Country Services, without remuneration on a purely voluntary basis, in order to upkeep a standard and for the benefit of walkers and the local community.

The group is led by our society member and Parish Footpath Warden Barry Lynock, and we carry out as much essential maintenance work as we can from April to November every year.

We would like anyone who does find safety issues or maintenance defects on any of the paths, including; stiles, fences gates etc. associated with them to contact us via the Village Society website or email us at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or phone Barry Lynock (0121 445 3917), so that we can either sort the problem out quickly or liaise with Worcester County Council in order to find a solution.

Regarding the path mentioned in the last issue, barbed wire alongside a Public Right of Way should not be used where the width of the right of way is narrow forcing the public to walk close by. Certainly, barbed wire is not supposed to be accessible, so we have contacted the land owner and WCC who are meeting with Barry to sort this barbed wire problem out.

Barry tells me he has spoken to the land owner who is being very co-operative and hopefully he will also get the unevenness of the path sorted as soon as possible. in the meantime can I ask people to be extra careful while using this path prior to work being done and, of course, while out walking in the countryside in general.

Adrian Smith
Chairman, Alvechurch Village Society

The Editor writes: Worcestershire County Council has now promised to level and surface the footpath with Tarmac planings within the next six weeks.

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