ECONOMIC value of walking 'grossly underestimated' by local authorities

A new report commissioned by The Ramblers' Association (RA) and published today, dramatically highlights the enormous impact of walking on the rural economy in England, and the benefits of an open and easily useable footpath network to rural businesses. 

The report is published to coincide with the RA's Footpaths Week, 21 - 27 June 2003, a week of action to highlight the state of the footpath network, and call for improvements from local authorities in the biggest lobbying exercise of councillors in the RA's calendar.

The report's initial findings indicate that over 500 million walking trips are made annually to the English countryside; expenditure associated with these trips is a staggering £5.78 billion. From these figures it is possible to estimate the income generated from this expenditure to be between £1.4 billion and £2.6 billion in rural areas. Translated into employment figures, the report estimates that walking in England supports between 170,000 and 231,360 full-time jobs.

Despite the huge number of jobs and the level of income that walking generates in the English countryside, councils across England continue to under-fund or simply neglect their paths, denying communities economic benefits through increased rural tourism.

The Audit Commission currently estimates that 31% of all footpaths are difficult or impossible to use in England. Due to obstructions, the ploughing and cropping of paths, dangerous or missing stiles and gates or missing signposts, a walker can expect to encounter a problem every 2km of their walk. 

Jacquetta Fewster, Head of Footpath Campaigns at the RA, said, "It would take as little as £1.79 for every adult in England, to have the entire footpath network open, useable and easily navigable; a tiny amount for councils to invest in a public amenity that brings so much money into local economies, as well as providing social and health benefits to local communities."

 
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